Little Giants Home Childcare in North York daycare openings, reviews and ratings

Daycare description / philosophy

Welcome to The Little Gaints. We are a private daycare provider. Five short years ago I started the daycare because I want my son to have some playmates... and now I can't imagine doing anything else.

Location:
We are located around 404 and 401 (Don Mills and Sheppard). Our town home sits quietly away from the main road on a cul-de-sac. We are minutes away from several playgrounds in the area and parks. We also have a library in walking distance.

The physical environment:
The daycare is on the main floor of the house with front and back exits. The layout is carefully planned with different stations to enrich children's learning. These areas includes but not limited to, dramatic, cognitive, music, science and art & craft.

Qualification:
Our ratio is 1:5 which reflect on Ministry's standard for private home daycare providers. We are staff with Early Childhood Educators. All our teachers has completed their First Aid (Level C + AED) certificate, and police background checked.

Hours:
Our door opens from 7:30 am to 6 pm.

Meals:
We serve breakfast, lunch, and 3 snacks (following the Canadian Food Guide) throughout the entire day. Whenever possible, we serve our children organic dairy products, meat, vegetable and fruit. Parents are asked to provide food for the infant or toddler if they are still on blended or strained food and/or formula or breast milk.

Routine:
The schedule for the children is structured but flexible. Depending on the weather the children will have approximately 1.5-2 hours of outdoor time each day (1 hour in the morning and 0.5-1 hour in the afternoon). There is about 2-3 hours of supervised play for the children to explore different materials each day. During this time we would offer each child support and assistance, if needed, to develop their five domains: cognitive, physical (fine & gross motor), social, emotional and language & communication.

In respect to individuality, our goals and expectation is different from child to child. A bi-annual assessment is also used to record each child’s development to ensure the child is reaching their milestones. Children over 2.5 years old are expected to participate in age appropriate academic materials (workbooks, etc.) for approximately 15-20 minutes daily. Younger children are encouraged to participate in table activities to build their concentration skills and the habit to sit quietly at the table. Learning opportunities are also scheduled daily to need the interesst and needs of the children. Weekly documentation is done via a secret Facebook group with pictures and videos so parents can have an insight to what their children are learning during the week.

Philosophy & Behaviour Management:
In our daycare we follow the emergent philosophy which values the individuality of each child. We do daily observations and implement activities following their interests . Our goal is to build resilience in children by developing their self-help skills, self-regulation, self-formation, and problem-solving skills.

We use positive guidance with the children, which includes positive reinforcement, visualization, communication and utilizing different tools to help children understand why and what we expect from them. 'Time away' is used for children with inappropriate behaviour to calm down (self-regulate), be away from the group and return to the group at their own timing. We use conflict resolution techniques to resolve conflicts between two or more children and 'I' messages when dealing with one child.

About me:
I am an energetic mom of a seven years old son. I was in the graphic design industry for about 10 years and since the birth of my son I have decided to take time off from my career to focus on raising my son. One year has turned to another...

What we expect from parents:
Open communication - so we can work together to make sure your child is developing where he/she should be for his/her age on areas such as, self help skills, socioemotional, language, motor skills. We would also ask the parents to be involved in assisting me to screen and assess the child using tools developed by health and educational professionals.

Please contact us for a visit or for more information. We love to hear from you!