Difference Between Daycare and Preschool

My son goes to a daycare that shifts them into preschool as they are ready, so it is really gradual. They are learning at every level, but when they start "preschool", they are trying to get them ready for what they will experience in kindergarten

I have a friend that is starting her daughter in "preschool" at 22 months and they do the whole lunch box/backpack thing, which seems a little extreme to me for that age.

Probably the biggest difference is the time commitment. If you're in a home-based day care, they probably have less structure dedicated toward your child's needs and perhaps more generalized to encompass all the children's ages.

In a traditional facility-based day care, though there's a general theme, our experience has been that the level of teaching is based upon their specific ages (for example: our three year old is learning to write letters, our 23 month-old is learning to say her ABCs)

Preschool is probably more geared towards the facility-based day cares with instruction at a defined level. But, the time in the classroom is generally much less than all-day day care. Our friends who have kids in preschool have complained that by the time they've had snacks, playtime, etc. there leaves little time for instruction vs. a child who's in day care all day.

It seems to all even out by the time they're in 1st grade. I had a conversation with a neighbor about this yesterday in terms of preparing kids for kindergarten (whether all-day or part-day) - a child who has no exposure to either day care or preschool will likely have a longer adjustment period to the duration of attention and focus to get through the day.

I think a lot of it also depends on the facility you choose (either way).

Generally I would say the difference will be in structure. Preschool will be targeted towards preparing the children for kindergarten. It will be considerably more structured with actual lessons mixed into the playtime. Preschool would be a primer for school.
It will vary widely daycare to daycare as some good quality daycares do offer some structured learning but there are many that don't. Depending on your daycare your child may be getting nothing but play time or your child could be getting structured lessons and activities to help prepare them for kindergarten. What is your daycare currently providing?
The other major differences are likely to be cost, hours of availability (especially if you are working) and location (do you have a preschool close to you?).
Hope that helps.

It really depends on so many things. Does your provider provide more than a safe, healthy and loving home for the children in her care? Is her home also set up like a preschool? Does she have her ECE Units for a Teacher Permit? The child's most important teachers are her parents. Children can learn and have a great preschool environment in a home environment or a child care center. Some children do well in a smaller group of children. We often care for children who did not do well in a center as there were just too many kids (12 two year olds to one teacher and one aide). Does your daughter do pre-reading and pre-writing activities? Does your provider have a Circle Time where much learning takes place? Do the children sing, dance, use musical instruments, exercise, have a dramatic play area, housekeeping, blocks, arts and crafts, etc? Do they have child size chairs and tables? Do they have a playground and trikes outside? Do they have free time to decide for themselves what they play with? Do they draw, paint with a variety of paints and crayons? Do they have a hot lunch and eat healthy foods? Do they have breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack?
Are they taught about healthy foods? And most of all, learning should be fun! Being with friends should be fun! Childhood should be happy! As you can tell, I am a licensed family child care provider with my Master Teacher Permit. I love spending my days with young children. My husband is my helper and so is our granddaughter on the three days she is not in college.
Alphabet Soup Child Care, "Where Learning is Fun!"

K.,

My daughter is also 3 years old and she attends pre-school. The school she goes to is a real academic learning environment. She has learned to recognize letters, their sounds, shapes, cause and effect, poets, weather patterns, and literary greats. Preschool, especially those that specialize in academics over play, focus on learning. Day care provides supervision to your child while you are away at work, however, preschool is really a school environment.
- T.

As others have said, it depends on the individual programs. We have a home daycare, and I have worked many years prior to that in various daycare/preschool settings. The advantage I find in home daycare is that it is more like a family atmosphere. In our daycare, we have a lot of free play time, but also are ready to do teaching projects. I started out with the idea of having a definite 'sit down and learn' time during every day, but soon found that with the different age ranges that wasn't working well. Now we try to watch and listen for the 'teachable moments'. Someone mentioned that preschools may have more funding for field trips. I haven't found that to be the case... in fact some of the larger well-known preschools don't even take kids on field trips at all. Our children have outings regularly. They may be as simple as a walk around the neighborhood or a play time in the nearby park. Or, we may take them to a store with us and use that time as teaching time. We also try to plan regular field trips to places such as the zoo, a museum or other places that are of interest to young children. When we do those, we ask the parents to help with the cost of admission and perhaps a little extra to help cover transportation and lunch. Most of our field trips are no cost or inexpensive, and those we simply include in the program without reimbursement. Having worked in home childcare, daycare centers and preschools, I have come to think that for most children under age five the home daycare is the best situation... again it depends on what the individual daycare is offering.

From my experience the difference between preschool and daycare depends on which preschool and daycare you are talking about. Truth is that you could find a daycare that does much more than a preschool does while some of these places say they are preschools but are just expensive baby sitter. You will have to do your research, make visits to the palces and speak with other parents if possible in order to determine what you will be getting.

Most preschools though, will get the child introduced to the Kindergarten setting - waiting in line, sitting and listening to a story. Others will teach alphabet, letter sounds and some writing. Some of them do nothing but watch the children play.

It probably depends on the individual day care program. Some are set up a lot like a pre-school. Basically daycare has a lot of free play time. Pre-school is just as the name says. They have some free play time but also have sit still and listen time usually with a curriculum similar to Kindergarten. They usually also do some paper work wheather it be drawing or practicing letters, etc. Basically the goal of a preschool is to get the kids ready for Kinder and a day care is just a safe place for them to be when parents aren't available.

I would ask your daycare provider or you probably know if she does lessons with the kids. I run an in home daycare and I just started teaching my 3 year old and 2 year old niece preschool.

I think that daycare is more like a "babysitting/child care" service and preschool is more like "school." That said, there are day cares that do teaching activities and a lot of day care centers that have their own preschools in them...like 1/2 day in the daycare (playing) and 1/2 day in the "preschool" learning.
When my son went to nursery school at age 3 it was only 2 mornings per week and pre-school at age 4 (Pre-K), was 3 mornings per week.

I am so glad you asked this, my son is 3 1/2 and I've been doing some research on pre-schools and doing some tours and I have found that my son is actually learning more in his home daycare than he would at these places. He can write his and his brothers names, knows the alphabet by sight and can write his letters up to J so far, he can count to 20 consistentaly. The only plus I can see is that it would get him used to a classroom environment for when he goes to Kindergarten.

I'm interested to hear others thoughts.

Every individual setting is different, but in general I think preschools have more funding for things that a home day care may not, like a wider array of books, toys, art supplies, educational materials, play ground equipment, etc. (Go visit a few and look around and compare to what you have seen in the home day care.) Plus, depending on the requirements where you live, home day cares need to be certified for safety, but preschool teachers also have to have minimum requirements for teaching, too (In Florida, it's a Child Development Associate- CDA... no idea what the laws are in CA) plus depending on the laws in your area they may have to go through finger print and/or drug testing. Though a home day care provider may have structured activities, a preschool usually has some sort of educational philospophy and follows a curriculum. Also, being in a bigger class at a preschool, kids may be more ready for kindergarten because they have more opportunities to have to share, wait their turn, wait in line, experience more centers in the classroom, deal with substitute teachers, raise their hand during circle time, etc.

HI K.,

I run a home daycare and I have a child is preschool currently. I feel like I do a lot of age appropriate activities in my daycare, and that the kids that come here are exposed to things that they don't typically do at home... we sing a lot, using silly songs and traditional songs to teach, we do lots of art that focuses on colorings and small motor skill play, we do creative play, outdoor play, and free play and work on social skills.

The biggest difference that I see between daycare and preschool is that the children are interacting more with their same ages peers and the expectation is different when they reach ages 3 and 4. They work on things to prepare them for kindergarten, that we can't really do in daycare because usually the age range is too wide. They also work on things that require longer time periods of concentration and just sitting still... which is something kids have to be able to do in kinder.

The biggest benefit for my kids was learning to trust different teachers and listen to their teaching style and playing with kid's their own age. I think daycare is a great stepping stone to preschool and preschool a good one toward kinder! Good luck!

There is a huge difference and they are both needed. Most daycares provide a loving, nuturing environment and teaches them how to get along with others etc. But....had I not moved my son to a learning pre-school he would have totally been behind. He learned lines etc. but the pre-school that I moved him to 8 months before Kindergarden taught him to write letters and count and write his name. In this class there were already 4 year olds doing this and it was still in a fun learning environment. They also started the 5 year olds sitting in a circle and paying attention to activities for an hour a day and that teaches them a skill needed in Kindergarten as well. Most of the kids in Kindergarten that had not been to DayCare or Preschool had trouble paying attention in a structured environment and that hurt them the most. Had my son not learned a lot of these skills he would have really struggled in Kindergarten.

There is more structure and a required lesson plan at a preschool

When a child is a full 3 yrs. old by the first day of school in the Fall and they start a shool type preschool it is usually during similar hours to the local school system school day, with the same holidays. Our Head Start Program is actually associated with the school system, they send reports to the school board about attendance and any educational concerns they have such as possible Autism. It is set up like a school classroom with designated play areas, desks, circle time area, art area, etc...they have a scheduled time for certain activities such as nap time and outside play, etc.... They have a curriculum they are required to stick to so that the educational requirments are met. This is how many of them get grants and extra educational funding.

In a child care setting the teacher should also have a teaching plan but it is often one that she has developed herself. If the teacher is experienced, a Master Teacher, then it is perfectly acceptable to do this. I had a theme for each month of the year, and then one for each week, and then an activity or desired goal for several days that of that week.
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IE: of my posted month in my parent area of my classroom. This is very general, I had tons more activites, songs, crafts, etc...everything came out of Mailbox curriculum books I purchased at a local Business supply

February-collr of the month-red, white, pink
Numbers for the month-wk-1, #5, wk-2, #6, wk-3, #7, etc...
Wk 1 theme,Human Heart, make heart book from Mailbox curriculm book
Wk 2 theme, heart shape, Valentines Day Party, making Valentine Crafts
Wk 3 theme, Dental month focus, make mouth from boxand use yarn to floss teeth,
Wk 4 theme, Post Office, get relatives to send mail, take kids to local post office field trip
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I sent K to preschool at Head Start for her 3 yr. old preschool because I felt even though I had a good program that she would be better prepared for school at 5 for Kindergarten. The only choice I would do differently would be that I would send her to Pre-K at the Elementary school instead of Head Start for the 4 yr.old program because it seemed to me that she was ready for a more focused program in a school setting and her teachers didn't seem to meet my ideals. The 3 yr. program was awesome so the 4 yr. old teachers had high standards to live up to.

Generally day care just takes care of the kids, where preschool is a chance to start to learn in a more formal setting. Also, preschool is generally only 3 hours a day, not all day like day care...