Sanitization's Articles Archives
How a portable sink made working at my day care easier.
I would personally like to thank the person who invented portable sinks and let them know how much easier they’ve made my job. I guess I should also thank my boss for buying one. I work in a daycare center. The little ones that I look after are four and five-years old. You can imagine what happens when we go outside for recess, where they’re given a food treat and some time to run around and play. Their food inevitably gets on everything: their clothes, their hands and their face. The boys are especially messy and you can only imagine what they look like after running through the play area, especially if the ground is a little wet or muddy. Our portable sink is a lifesaver during these times, because we can remove all of the food and dirt from their hands and clothes before they go back into the classroom. Before we had the portable sink, we had to use wet wipes, but that never worked very well. I just love having the sink available in the play area. It has made my job so much easier. In addition, the parents appreciate having clean kids when they go home at the end of the day.
Stay away from wood chips!
As a daycare provider, I have had wood chips on my playground until about 5 years ago. Wood chips are very dangerous for children. Wood chips are most prevelant on swingsets and jungle gyms! However, it is important that, as adults, we keep children away from woodchips! We replaced our wood chips with turf after a incident with one of our four year olds. When reseaching more about wood chips, we found out that there are many dangers that come along with wood chips! Dangers of wood chips include: the lodging of the wood in the child mouth and chins! Also there is the ability for woodchips to get stuck in the child’s knee. Good alternatives for promoting playground safety include turf flooring, or even blacktops!
Cleanliness in a Child’s Environment.
When working with children it is very important to keep your hands washed at all times. If you do not keep good hygiene while in the child care industry you are risking many things. Dirty hands spread germs, which could make children sick, you may encourage bad behavior, and you’ll appear as an unfit caregiver to parents. If you do not wash your hands, especially after using the bathroom, you become filled with nasty bacteria. If you prepare food for them you are spreading these germs onto the food. If anyone, especially a child eats enough, they could come down with the flu or maybe even something worse. There are measures, such as making a game out of the task or using a portable sink, to make hand washing seem like less of a chore.
There are other ways of spreading germs, such as anytime you TOUCH any of them. Most of us know that children; especially babies love to suck on their thumb. If you grab hold of their hands at any point while yours are unclean, you may spread bacteria this way. Not only can you spread germs, but you are also encouraging bad behavior. You are a role model to these children. If you do not wash your hands, they will not want to wash their hands. If a child does not wash his or her hands they will spread germs on everything the touch. Every toy, coloring book, table, etc. in the day care center will eventually contain more germs than normal, and risk the health of everyone there. If you expect children to wash their hands, you must encourage the behavior by example. The worst possible thing you could achieve while working with children is gaining the distrust of their parents.
If you are in a public bathroom with a parent, or in the kitchen preparing a meal while the parents watch, and they do not see you wash your hands first, they are going to be disgusted. Parents put all their trust in you when they leave their children in your care. There are other ways to be a bad role model aside from yelling and being rude. Not washing your hands before you prepare a child’s meal, or play with a child is very disgusting and most parents will not stand for it. Just by simply forgetting to wash your hands, you could lose your job and the trust of parents. A way to prevent this from happening is to make sure your facility has a decent amount of portable sinks. By having a portable sink in every room, this makes washing your hands seem like less of a chore for both you and the children.
In conclusion, when working with children it is always important to promote cleanliness. If you do not wash your hands, you are risking a child’s health, risking bad behavior, and risk your job. Children are mimics, and will do as you do. It is important to always show them good behavior. You do not want to lose your job, or lose the trust of parents due to unwashed hands.
Child Care Equipment
It can be a real challenge to find the right equipment for a child care setting. One of the first considerations in selecting equipment for a child care situation is the age of the children being cared for. If the children are around the same age, it will go a long way toward simplifying the search for the proper equipment. Safety is always one of the most crucial considerations. Of course when selecting child care equipment you want to steer clear of sharp edges, and always choose the sturdiest equipment you can afford. This is one area where you don’t want to skimp, since quality, well built equipment will repay for your investment in the long run. Ordinary residential furniture, for instance, won’t hold up long when it is being used continuously by active toddlers. You will also want to look into soft play, for the toddlers.You can purchase special daycare or school furnishings that are sized just for kids, safe and durable. Be sure to keep your child care equipment clean, washing all washable surfaces on a regular basis to keep things bright and clean and also to kill mold and germs. It is also a good idead to have some portable sinks around the facility. Having portable sinks will let kids easily wash their hands no matter what part of the building they are in. It is preferable to keep a good and diverse stock of playthings for the children in your care as well. Depending on the number of children in care, you can even rotate the toys from one season to the next, stowing them away for a month or so and then bringing them back out so the toys seem new again to the kids. Be sure to have enough storage space for your child care equipment and you can even have the kids participate in keeping things organized, which will be easier if you have brightly colored containers to keep toys separate.
