How to read a daycare's daily schedule
Ask for the schedule and count the minutes: teaching in pieces of fifteen minutes or less, never two in a row, outside twice, rest that is rest, a teacher inside the play. Ours is here in full.
Ask any program for its daily schedule, and then read it the way a teacher would: count the minutes. A good day for a three-year-old has teaching in it, and the teaching comes in pieces of fifteen minutes or less, never two in a row, with play, meals, rest and the yard around them. A schedule that cannot be produced, or that is one long block labeled 'learning,' tells you as much as one that can.
Count the minutes
The shape that works for this age is short and often: a few minutes of letters here, a few minutes of numbers there, a story, a song, and the room open in between. The field's own position statement on early reading warns against long whole-group instruction and drill on isolated skills for children this young, and names songs, games, rhymes and stories as the way in. In a full day that runs from 6:30 to 6:00, about two hours of teaching in nine or ten short pieces is a real program. Two hours in a row is a red flag, and so is none at all.
Look for both halves
Reading aloud builds a child's language and does not teach letters. Work on letters and their sounds teaches letters and does not build language. Those are two different jobs, and a good schedule has both on it where you can see them: a story twice a day, and a small-group few minutes on letters and sounds, separately, also twice. If you can only find one, ask where the other is.
Look for the teacher inside the play
The biggest block on any honest schedule is play, and the question is what the adult is doing during it. Free play is children choosing everything; it is valuable, and it is not a plan. Guided play is a teacher who decided what the block corner was for this morning, built it so that thing is likely to happen, and then sat down in it and followed the children rather than leading them. The difference is visible from the doorway: an adult on the floor asking questions, or an adult at the edge of the room watching the clock. Ask what the teacher was trying to do in one corner this morning. A real answer comes fast.
Outside, rest, and the long afternoon
Outside should appear at least twice, and 'weather permitting' should mean ice, lightning and a heat advisory, not drizzle. Rest should be rest: a mat, a dim room, and a book for the child who does not sleep, not two hours in the dark with no alternative. And look hard at the hours after three, because that is where tired programs put the television. The afternoon should hold a snack, the yard again, something quiet with a teacher in it, and a way for you to find out how the day went.
The two-year-old's day is different
A twos room keeps the same shape with shorter pieces. Ten minutes, not fifteen. Songs, rhymes, colors and shapes, and the letters in their own name rather than the whole alphabet. More of the day on the floor and outside. And the most important teaching in a twos room does not look like teaching at all: a teacher who notices what a child is looking at, names it, and waits for the answer. Harvard's Center on the Developing Child calls that back-and-forth 'serve and return' and describes it as the foundation of a child's language. About an hour of that, on purpose, in a day, is plenty.
Ours, in full
Here is the day we plan to run in the threes-and-fours room. The teaching pieces are listed underneath so you can count them. This is the day as planned; the clock will move a few minutes with the season and the weather, and the shape will not.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 6:30 | Doors open. The teacher at the door says your child's name. Breakfast at the quiet table for anyone who needs it; books, puzzles and blocks while the room fills. |
| 7:45 | Story. A book read aloud on the rug, the teacher's finger under the words, and talked about after. |
| 8:00 | Circle. One Bible story, told the way you would tell it to a three-year-old. A song or two. The day laid out so every child knows what is coming. |
| 8:15 | Letters. The small table: four children, a teacher, five letter cards in no set order, a few minutes, then the next four. The rest of the room draws or builds. |
| 8:30 | The room opens. Blocks, paint, the water table, the play store, the book corner. A teacher inside the play, not at the edge of it. |
| 9:15 | Numbers. Things in hand: bears to count, cubes to pattern, the calendar, a game with a turn for everyone. |
| 9:30 | Snack. |
| 9:45 | Sounds. Rhymes, the beats clapped in a name, the first sound in a word. Songs and games, because that is how a four-year-old hears the pieces of a word. |
| 10:00 | Outside. Every day the weather allows. Running, digging, the tricycle loop. |
| 10:45 | Story. The second read-aloud of the day, and the questions after it. |
| 11:00 | Lunch. At a table with a grown-up. Please and thank you are part of the meal. |
| 11:30 | Mats down. A blanket from home, a dim room. Nobody is made to sleep and nobody is woken. A child who stays awake gets a book and a quiet corner. |
| 1:45 | Up. The bathroom, then a book on the mat while the room wakes up. |
| 2:00 | Snack. |
| 2:15 | Letters. The small table, the second time today. A child who has the letters moves on to the sounds, and then to putting two or three together, when that child is ready and not when the calendar says. |
| 2:30 | Outside. |
| 3:00 | The bus. School-age brothers and sisters arrive: a snack, homework at the big table, the yard. In the threes-and-fours room, the room opens again. |
| 3:30 | Numbers. The second time: counting coins into the play store's till, or working out how many more blocks the tower needs to reach the shelf. |
| 3:45 | Show and tell. One child, one thing from home, and the questions the others ask. |
| 4:00 | Snack. Something small, for the long afternoon. |
| 4:15 | Music. The beat clapped, a rhythm passed round the circle, a song learned by heart. |
| 4:30 | The yard again. When the light allows. Puzzles and books when it does not. |
| 5:00 | Listen and color. One piece of real music, the composer's name said out loud, while they color. |
| 5:15 | The room empties. Quiet play. Rooms combine for the last hour, always inside the ratio. A teacher who was in the room tells you how the day went, and the note home is already in the backpack. |
| 6:00 | Doors close. |
The teaching: 7:45 story, 8:15 letters, 9:15 numbers, 9:45 sounds, 10:45 story, 2:15 letters, 3:30 numbers, 4:15 music, 5:00 listen and color. 9 pieces, none longer than fifteen minutes, never two in a row, about two hours and a quarter in all. Everything else is play with a teacher in it, meals, rest and the yard.
The twos
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 6:30 | Doors open. With the threes until 7:30. Breakfast for anyone who needs it; books and floor toys. |
| 7:30 | Songs. Finger plays and the songs they already know, on the rug. |
| 7:45 | Story. A book read aloud, with a lot of pointing and a lot of questions. |
| 8:00 | A teacher's game, or outside. A bear hunt round the room, a pretend picnic on a blanket, a hunt for the toy animals hidden in plain sight. |
| 8:45 | Table toys. |
| 9:00 | Snack. |
| 9:20 | Circle. One Bible story, told for a two-year-old. A song. |
| 9:30 | Letters and numbers. Ten minutes: the letters in their own name, a color, a shape, counting to three with something to hold. |
| 9:45 | Outside. |
| 10:30 | The room opens. The water table, blocks, play dough, the book corner. A teacher on the floor in it. |
| 10:45 | Colors and shapes. Ten minutes with crayons and blocks, the teacher naming what they make. |
| 11:00 | Lunch. At a table with a grown-up. |
| 11:30 | Story, then mats. |
| 11:45 | Rest. Nobody is made to sleep, nobody is woken. |
| 1:45 | Up. Diapers, the bathroom, a book on the mat. |
| 2:00 | Snack. |
| 2:20 | Words. Ten minutes of a teacher noticing what each child is looking at, naming it, and waiting for the answer. |
| 2:30 | Outside. |
| 3:00 | A teacher's game. |
| 3:15 | Story. The second read-aloud of the day. |
| 3:30 | Toys with a teacher. |
| 3:45 | Music. Instruments, a song, a dance. |
| 4:00 | Snack. |
| 4:15 | Table time. Puzzles, books, play dough, the memory game. |
| 5:00 | With the threes. The last hour together, always inside the ratio. The note home is in the backpack. |
| 6:00 | Doors close. |
The teaching: 7:30 songs, 7:45 story, 9:30 letters and numbers, 10:45 colors and shapes, 2:20 words, 3:15 story, 3:45 music. About an hour in all, in pieces of ten minutes, and the rest on the floor, at the table, outside, or asleep.
Before and after school
School-age brothers and sisters are with us from 6:30 until the bus and from the bus until 6:00: breakfast, the yard and a read-aloud in the morning; a snack, homework at the big table with a teacher who checks it, and the yard again in the afternoon. On a Frederick County Public Schools snow day, our plan is for them to come for the whole day.
Questions to ask about any schedule
- What happens at 8:15? Ask about a specific time, not about a typical day.
- How long is the longest stretch the children sit? Fifteen minutes is a good answer for a three-year-old.
- Where are letters and sounds on the schedule, and where is the story? You want both, separately.
- What is the teacher doing during free play?
- When do they go out, and what keeps them in?
- What happens after three o'clock?
- What comes home, and how often?
The position statement on early reading is the NAEYC and International Reading Association joint statement, Learning to Read and Write, 1998; the finding that reading aloud and letter work do different jobs is from the National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; 'serve and return' is the phrase of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Rules change, and so do programs. Before you rely on anything here, check it with the Maryland State Department of Education's Office of Child Care, or ask the center to show you.
We are opening a full-day Christian center in Frederick County. We are not licensed yet and cannot offer a place, but you can join our list and hear first.