Throughout college, I worked at a child development center for two years, as well as a child study center. I worked with ages 6 weeks up to 6 years. However, I mostly worked with ages 6 weeks to 3 years. I truly enjoyed this time with the children and only stopped working there because I took an internship as a Child Life Specialist at a children's hospital.
After completing my internship, I worked for a program where I worked with parents and children from birth to 5 years old. I went to families' homes and educated parents on child development. In addition, I played with the children through age appropriate activities to work on hitting milestones and keeping the children on track developmentally. I now am a stay-at-home mother to our 8 yr old daughter, 5 yr old son and 3 yr old daughter, as well as watch a few other children. :)
Because of my education and previous jobs, I enjoy creating activities to do with the children. I particularly like hands-on activities. Therefore, I do a lot of things like finger-painting, playing with play-doh and playing in a sensory table. A sensory table is child size table with a tote in the center (my husband made mine). Inside the tote, I put a variety of things each week, such as: cornmeal, cloud dough (flour and baby oil), water beads, dry mixed beans, colored dry rice, bubbles, packing peanuts, oatmeal, shaving cream, etc. Depending upon what is in the table, I also put things such as shovels, cups, funnels, plastic bugs, small cars and trucks, etc. for the children to use to manipulate the materials. I enjoy teaching the children and helping them learn new developmental skills through play. At times, I create themes (such as ABC's, colors, etc) to teach throughout the week and center the activities around that theme (story, craft, sensory table, etc).