The Learning Ladder II A reading and writing curriculum for Family Child Care Providers, Children and Families

Welcome to the Introduction to Module 6!

Module Objectives

You probably didn't choose to become a family child care provider and care for children because you love to keep records, do billing, pay taxes or worry about insurance. Most family child care providers are often more concerned with nurturing children than thinking about business policies, but as a family child care provider, you are the owner and operator of a small business.

In this module we will cover business policies and practices that providers need to follow in order to run a successful family child care business.

In this module you will learn ...

• how to set up and keep good children's files
• how to create contracts with parents
• the policies that should be included in parent contracts
• what is income from your family child care business
• what are the expenses for family child care and how to keep good records for your taxes
• the differences between full and partial deductions

In this module you will ...

• develop a check list for children's files
• make a list of policies to share with parents
• develop a contract for parents
• figure out the percentage of your home you can claim against your income taxes.
• develop a system for tracking your income and expenses

Terms from the Field

Below are words and definitions that you may need when you work as a Family Child Care Provider. You will learn more about these words later in the module.

When you see the speaker after each of the definitions you can hear the pronunciation of the term and what it means.

Attendance Records - A form that a provider fills in to keep track of the children that attend your program every day.

Attendance Records [WAV] (162kb WAV file)

Food Programs - A federal system for paying caretakers for the meals and snacks that you serve to the children in your program.

Food Programs [WAV] (139kb WAV file)

Financial Records - the paperwork that you need to keep in order to run your business and pay taxes. All family child care providers need to keep financial records of income and expenses.

Financial Records [WAV] (277kb WAV file)

Income - income includes all fees received from parents as well as government subsidies.

Income [WAV] (101kb WAV file)

Expenses - The moneys that you need to spend to run your business. These can include food, household daycare supplies such as soap, toilet paper and tissues. These can also include toys and play supplies.

Expenses [WAV] (345kb WAV file)

If you find other words that you don't understand, you can do two things :

1. Learn how to identify a word without a dictionary.

Or

2. Use an online dictionary that will be at the bottom of each page. See below.

Now go to the activities for Part 1.

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