Daycare

I can honestly say that this group has been one of the most welcoming work experience places I've ever been, and it made me feel at home pretty much from the start.

Maybe it helps that the very first day I arrived, the notice board greeted me with this:

There's four ladies working shifts in this group: Margriet, Colinda, Franka and Annemiek. Margriet was also my personal mentor/instructor during the five weeks, and I couldn't have asked for a kinder, more helpful instructor for a work period where you're living and working in an unfamiliar, foreign environment. Though that doesn't mean that the other three were any worse off - I would say all four were very friendly and easily approachable, and I never felt like I was an outsider, which is quite an achievement considering sometimes even in Finnish learning work environments you never quite feel like you're fully part of the team. Even staff from other groups were always ready for some chit-chat or kind words!

But to observe some differences (and similarities) between Dutch and Finnish nursery schedules, here's a good example of the Daycare group's regular activities.

In Finland, if children come to the nursery early enough, they get breakfast: quite often some variety of porridge. In here it was always juice and different fruits (selection would vary a bit every day), and served somewhat later - generally speaking, every child who meant to arrive to the daycare before 1 p.m should have arrived by 9:30. After fruit time, there would be time to play inside. There were two toilets for the kids to use, but most still wear nappies - however, since there was only one nappy changing station, nappies had to get checked and changed one at a time.

Since I did my work practice between April and May, which in Netherlands meant that spring was in full bloom, the children would also spend a lot of time outside (I'll make a separate post showcasing the garden). Still, even in case of bad weather, the room had lots of different toys and activities to keep the children interested. During the 5 weeks I was there, a lot of the kids were really keen on playing and looking after baby dolls, as well as using the little kitchen.

Around 11:30 a.m, it would be lunch time. I recall this was actually one of the biggest surprises for me on my first day of work - neither kids nor adults have warm meals, lunch is always a sandwich. Maybe occasionally some soup to accompany it, but mostly just bread, butter, and a variety of possible toppings kids could choose from: ham, chicken, various cheeses, jam, peanut butter... I did get used to it fairly fast, but in Finland, you are used to kids always getting warm meals.

In many Finnish nurseries, kids go to sleep straight after lunch - in here they had a little longer to play before it was time to sleep. But the rule of thumb was that most kids who would go to sleep would be in their beds around 1 p.m, although seeing how some only arrived to the daycare at 1 p.m, there might be a slight delay.

                                                                    (guest starring in the picture: Margriet)

Much like in Finland, the bedroom was a separate little room from the area where the kids would play. But I found the beds themselves quite interesting, and perhaps a sign of how much younger some of the kids in the nurseries are in comparison to Finland. Most Finnish nurseries have either bunk beds or camping beds which are easy to set up and clean away. In here, you have what I can only describe as bunk cribs.

And perhaps because this sort of bed was very secure and kids couldn't get out of them without adult's help, there was actually no need for an adult to stay in the bedroom. In Finland, I'm pretty sure there is always someone in the room supervising the kids when it's nap time.

The kids would generally wake up sometime between 2 and 3 p.m, most of the time on their own, but at latest everyone would be awake at 3:30 when it was time for the crackers and tea - similar to the snack you get in Finnish daycares, but once again, served a bit earlier in Finland. Albeit in Finland, the snack tends to be different every day - here, it was always crackers, although the kids could choose different topping for it, similar to the sandwiches. The kids also all drank a little cup of tea, which I feel Finnish kids might not really get behind, but I guess the kids get used to it.

(A lot of parents in Finland put their kids to sleep outside in buggies, and sometimes the same happens in nurseries - but I've yet to see Finnish nurseries have these sort of little huts where even slightly bigger kids can sleep during nap time. I thought they were actually pretty genius; you just have to keep an eye on them so you know when the kids wake up.)

A lot of times, if the weather was decent, we'd start going outside as soon as kids were finished with the crackers and had been to the toilet (or had their nappy checked). Some would get picked up before 5 p.m, a few would literally only get picked a few minutes before the closing time.

In summary: Some things were different than Finnish nursery traditions, but not SO different that you'd feel fully mystified by it.