One common question that pops up in Family Day Care forums and discussions is “What is your number one best buy or favourite piece of equipment or toy?”. I’m always curious to see what other educators have up their sleeve and I’ve uncovered a number of gems through such discussions. I don’t consider my own set up highly sophisticated compared to others, but I aim to be intentional in the way I set up my environments and include lots of open ended materials that can be used in many ways or can be repurposed into different set ups and play invitations. Today I’d like to share one particular set of equipment which I consider to be one of the most versatile in my set ups and has been worth every cent invested and more. Jumbo size building blocks I bought them five years ago at Big W in a set of 78-80 pieces for under a hundred dollars or thereabouts. They were such a big hit I went back to get another set but they were all sold out. They’ve become an integral part of my set up and function...

The month of May usually synonymous with Mothers’ Day. At this season of motherhood, my Mothers’ Day is still a shower of cute crafty gifts and cards and funny ‘Interview Questions’. Although this year for the first time I received bona fide presents from both kids which they used their own precious ‘ang pow’ money to buy from the Mothers’ Day gift stall set up at their school. Grace got me a set of heart shaped cookie cutters. Which I suspect was because she wanted me to tempt me with to bake cookies. Which we did. Nathan bought me two gifts—a drink bottle and a pretty little purse. It was sweet listening to them describe their unique thought processes for selecting their respective gifts. For the mums of my family day care kids this year, the children made heart-stenciled tea towels with fabric markers as their Mothers’ Day gifts. The children made these heart stencil tea towels to go with the cake-in-a-cup mugs for our mother's day gifts #familydaycare #mothersdaygift A pos...