I work in a daycare as a preschool teacher. The room consists of 3-5 year olds.

Any tips such as themes, songs, classroom management, frugal arts, etc?

I take care of (3) 3 year olds and (3) four years olds. I try to teach them various things during the day. Everything that I have I buy a box for and keep the pieces in a box. Like a playset. (yard sales are good for that) For example I have a great collections of potatoe head, blocks, a barbie box. I try to teach them patience and sitting down and actually playing than running all over. The most I ever get for each station (playset) time wise is 20 minutes and in between we talk and play. From this they learn to play, share, and actually carry on a thought longer than 2 seconds.
Gosh I better stop I could go on forever.
For my board I start with the Alphabet across the top and the number to one side. We try review them atleast once or twice a week.
I have done this over the years and my track record is good.. 4 out of the 6 kids I had when they were babies, are in the pc groups of their schools..
If you need anymore ideas let me know.. I am sooooo full of them...

I also have a daycare in my home. I do alot of the same things as Louise. We also have outdoor playtime, story time, etc.

I have a 7 mo. old boy, 13 mo. old girl, 2 2yr. old girls, and one 3 yr. old girl. Then I have 4 before/after school kids, plus my own dd.

something i did with my kids that was similar to what daycare did with ds, was to make a weather/seaons chart. i had a plain white paper placemat from another project tha a drew a hill with a tree on it. no leaves on the tree, just the tree with bare branches. i colored in the tree and the grass. that got covered in contact paper. that hangs on the wall. now using construction paper, you make thing like the sun, clouds, green cloud shapes to be the leaves on the tree. if it snows in your area, you can cut out snow for the ground and the tree branches. these get covered in contact paper. then i got really create and drew on the sticky side of the contact paper with markers to make the leaves of the tree in fall and some for the ground. i also did this for rain drops. then just stick to another piece of contact paper. it's a little weird drawing on the sticky side, but it was easier than trying to cut out little shapes and stick them on the contact paper. now you can stick these to the tree and hill poster. if it's sunny and spring time, the sun goes in the sky and green leaves on the tree. if it's fall and rainy, fall leaves go on the tree and the rain and clouds in the sky. use loops of clear tape to hold the shapes on the poster. my kids really liked changing it everyday.
the card and party outlet has a pack of i think 50 placemats for less than 10 bucks. the kids can make placemats for the holidays to take home. cover them in contact paper after they decorate them.

I love your idea pita, I'm going to steal it! I drew a blank tree on a big sheet of paper and each week this month we've stuck something fall related on it (coloured leaves, apples, turkeys, pumpkins next week) But I love the weather idea!

Wow what great ideas. I eventually would like to start an in home daycare I've heard many rewarding things about it. Thank you for your ideas! The kids have really been interested in fall. We have done things like painting with acorns, exploring gourds (fresh and dry), exploring the inside of a pumpkin and things like that. We are not allowed to celebrate holidays so we can't go too far with fall stuff as far as Halloween and Thanksgiving go.

you can get some great info from www.cyfernet.ces.ncsu.edu and www.zerotothree.org and www.childcarelink.org/

I work part time at a daycare currently and have for several years.