@Work: Daycare provider 'not just babysitting'

Volcanoes erupted at Cindy Satterfield's house Monday morning.

The home daycare provider was helping children Jackson Simmons, Jolton Mayes and her grandson Maddox Hill create mini-volcanoes from baking soda and vinegar.

Satterfield operates Cindy's Lil Blessin's, a home daycare located at 253 Goodwin Road in Albertville.

"It's not just babysitting," Satterfield said. "Home daycare providers' pet peeve is being called babysitters because we don't sit."

Indeed. With a baby in her arms, Satterfield never sat down while overseeing the mini-volcano experiments Monday morning.

Satterfield used to work in an office before starting her home daycare business in 2004.

"I'd worked in businesses all my life," Satterfield said. "My daughter was babysitting one summer, and I'd come home from work and play with the baby. I thought I could get more kids and make a living at this. I'm just a big kid anyway."

Satterfield said her daycare is licensed by the Department of Human Resources for up to 12 children and currently has slots open.

Satterfield's daycare provides for children 6 weeks old to the age when they start school.

"We're very regulated," she said. "We have a minimum standards book, and it's got about 400 pages in it. I have to have 20 hours of continuing childcare education each year. We get inspected every two years, and they can come out at any time and inspect you.

"They go through my whole house, not just my daycare part," she added. "They go through my playground. I have to have a specific equipment list and certain toys for motor skills and different things like that. I have to have the sleeping cots and a certain size room. You have the different kind of health issues like wearing gloves when you're diapering."

Satterfield is assisted by daughter Jessica Odom, who just started working at the daycare earlier this month. The daycare operates Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

"It's five days a week, and even on the weekends we're doing stuff to get ready for the next week," Satterfield said. "You have to do all your cleaning and all your sanitizing after the kids leave. You have to plan their lessons and plan their meals."

Satterfield said she helps the children with basic education such as their ABCs, colors and numbers.

"But most of our learning is through play," she said. "My philosophy is they're in school for 13 years, some of them 17 years, so we learn through play. They're only babies once.

Four Easy Science Experiments with Vinegar

Giving your children hands-on experience with science will not only jet start their motivation but will also help them remember the scientific concepts of their academic lessons.

When science projects require expensive ingredients or special orders from a catalog, mom's own motivation goes down -- way down. That's why I love vinegar experiments . You probably nave a bottle of vinegar in your cabinet right now , but some children like to form a cone from playdough or a glass jar covered in playdough. If you don't want the volcano effect, just select any container. A taller glass vessel really shows off the reaction well.