ABOUT US

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BACKGROUND:

My name is Sharon and I was born and grew up in Southwestern Ontario. (St. Thomas near London). After graduating from Queen's University with my Bachelor of Education degree, I began supply teaching. In May of that year, I married my husband John. We spent a lovely month in temporary housing at CFB Petawawa before moving to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

My husband is in the military as you may have guessed. So I have experience doing home daycare in 3 provinces (Nova Scotia, Alberta, Ontario) and 5 cities (Sydney, NS., Calgary, Alta., Ottawa, London, Kingston, Ont.). We are now back in Ottawa (Orleans acatually), and the plan is to stay put for a very long time. We live in Fallingbrook near St. Peter's High School.

While in the Maritimes, I completed courses towards my Early Childhood Education Certificate. In London, Ontario (1994-2000) I was screened by the police as a Block Parent.

FAMILY:

My husband John is very supportive of my dayhome business and participates actively as required including feeding, changing diapers and playing games. He sometimes provides care when I am unavailable.

I am the mother of four children:

JENNIFER: is 18 years old and will be graduating from OAC this June. Her plan is to begin University studies leading towards a career in music therapy with special needs children. She has lots of experience working with my daycare children. She has provided alternate care for me. She plays piano, guitar and flute with the children.

MELISSA: is 16 years old and in a General Learning Support class at High School. She has always struggled academically. She loves to play with the daycare children and helps me care for them when not in school.

SHAWN: is 14 years old and just started grade 9. He is very active physically and enjoys most sports but his passion year-round is soccer. He comes home at lunchtime most days. He has taken the babysitter's course and just recently completed his CPR training.

BRIANNE: is 8 years old and is the only one of my own children at home all day. She was born with a rare genetic condition called Trisomy 12p. Developmentally, she fits in well with the daycare children. Officially, I am homeschooling her, and the benefit is that our activities are skills based to reinforce the concepts which benefits all the children. It has also helped me to learn how to present tasks for learning in a fun way without pressure and to change the metods in an attempt to find out how each child learns.

We have a dog named Brandy. She is seen regularly by the Vet and all immunizations are up to date. She is nine years old so is very used to being around the daycare children. She doesn't go down into the the playroom. We have two guinea pigs - Sandy and Emily. I have also been asked to set up the aquarium again.

ABOUT ME:

Teaching and caregiving have always been important to me. As a teen I was the babysitter of choice in my neighbourhood. I was also a teacher in my Church Sunday School and active with the youth group. My involvement with the Church has continued in whatever city we were living. During University, I spent my summers working in an institution for developmentally delayed adults. It helped me to really see how things we take for granted are really a very complex learned behaviour. It is this knowledge that I bring to my daycare where the youngest children are also struggling with these tasks, toileting, feeding, dressing, sorting, stacking, and making the connection between speech, letters, words and reading.

I have experience working for a licensed dayhome agency both in Alberta and Ontario and am aware of the Ministry guidelines for family daycare. However, I found many of the "rules" confining. I realize that no two families are the same and therefore arbitrary rules didn't fit all situations. Working on my own allows me greater flexibility in forming a partnership of care with each family that meets their unique childcare requirements.

I am a member of the Child Care Providers Network of Otawa-Carleton which provides me with professional upgrading through workshops and support from other experienced caregivers.

When I attended Teacher's College at Queen's University, one of my favourite courses was Curriculum Design. My hobby has become creating learning resources for use by the children and for use during group circletimes. Examples include plastic canvas counting sets, crochet fingerpuppets and especially resources for the feltboard. The children seem to enjoy these unique resources and look forward to new creations.

My passion for learning with the feltboard runs deep to the point that I became an independent distributor of Story Teller Felt products. See the link from the homepage to my website. As part of my commitment to quality childcare any of the learning resources I make and the Story Teller Felt are available for purchase to anyone interested in making them part of their play and learning. Afterall, I have to have some way to earn enough money to buy more yarn and felt! The children have access to my display kit and their interests are the inspiration for new creations.

Homedaycare is my career of choice. I have been a provider for 16 years and have a hard time imagining doing anything else. One need only lok at the face of an infant or toddler experiencing something for the first time or a preschooler who recognizes the letters of their name for the first connection to reading to know that I have a very important and satisfying job.

Thank you to Graphic Garden
for images on this page.