My question is for other moms out there My friend and Iare starting our own home daycare at my house. I am looking for ideas for lunches and snacks that people feed the kids in there own daycare settings. Any information on the whole Home Daycare stuff would be great thank you.
A friend of mine has her own home daycare. We recently got together for dinner and I was lamenting on how much I didn't enjoy making lunch for my 2 picky boys. My friend has an alternating menu that she uses for lunch and snacks and it's posted so everyone knows what's being served when. She e-mailed it to me; if you'd like I can e-mail it to you. I'm thinking about doing somethign like that myself. :) Good luck!
I'm an in home daycare provider. I belong to a food program called Child Care Choices. That really helps me on planning out foods. The kids love chicken, hamburgers, french fries, corn. You really have to feel out the kids in your care. Stay with the basic food groups. Any questions feel free to contact me I'll try to help a little more. ____@____.com
T.
I would suggest joining a food program. I belong to Providers Choice www.providerschoice.com, but there are several. (When you become licensed they will contact you.) You will need to abide by some federal regulations, but you will receive money for participating in the program. There is a lot of assistance with menu planning and meal ideas through the program. I have found though that my plans are always being modified by what the children will and will not eat.
Getting on a website to provide some ideas on what to cook for the children is a great idea. Please, from a mom with a very picky eater, look into meals and dishes that are meatless but still provide plenty of protein. My daughter won't touch meat even though I offer it at every meal. I have been sucessful in getting her to eat tofu, egg whites, nuts, yogurt, and beans just to name a few. She will eat peanut butter but you must be careful for those children with peanut allergies. One of her favorites is what we call a rice bowl. It has Jasmine rice, what ever veg. we have from the night before and some form of protein diced up very small so she doesn't notice it. The only thing you would need to add on the side is some fresh fruit and milk. Good luck.
Hi J....
Jana has a lot of good ideas on her site: http://www.stepbystepcc.com/recipe.html I've used a lot of her recipes for my daycare kids, they really, really like making monkey treats themselves. You give them a half banana on a popsicle stick, you put the peanut butter on sparingly if you don't want a big mess, then give them a plate of rice krispies to dip their bananas in. This link is for recipes, but if you look throughout her entire site, there's lots of useful information and sample forms. My kids like making their own pizza with either english muffins or pita flat breads, sauce, cheese, and pepperonis. I wanted to add, too, I usually make a box of pancakes at a time and freeze them in meal sized portions w/waxed paper between. Same for french toast, which I cut into 'sticks' with the pizza cutter. The pizza cutter is great for cutting lots of stuff like sandwiches, french toast, pancakes...
Have fun!
If you get on a food program they usually give you lots of resources.
I am a daycare provider and usually after a few months kids have thier favorites.
I use www.allrecipes.com as a helpful site for recipes.
Good Luck!
My old boss at a inhome daycare also did the food program by providers choice. We had specific guidelines to what to feed the kids. Milk with every meal, fruit with breakfast and lunch, veggie with lunch and meat etc. We did alot of kid friendly foods like chicken nuggets and pizza but we also did alot of home cooked meals. My boss would cook a huge meal (intending to have leftovers) for her husband and herself (she had no kids) and then would use that the following day for the kids. Like she made baked chicken drummies or pork chops all the time. Added a few side dishes like rice or veggies and let me tell you the kids loved it better than they did mac and cheese or pizza. The thought it was a treat. We always had our meals made ahead of time and just threw things in the microwave or in the oven just to warm things up it went alot faster and easier that way. Our kids loved fresh veggies, fresh fruit, and anything home cooked. After they drank their milk they had the choice of water or juice too. At snack time that went by how well nap time went. If they had a good nap time with no warning they got a exciting snack like cookies, if they had a horrible nap time they got something boring like crackers.
