A safe place for all children
Aunty's Child Care Center
Located in Duluth, Minnesota, Aunty’s Child Care is a step above your average in-home child care center! Not only do we provide quality care, we work with a nutrition program to ensure that your child is offered balanced and healthy meals. This clean and fun atmosphere is a safe place for your children each and every day!
learn more about usOur Programs for a Wide Range of Ages
Aunty's Child Care Programs
A rich environment where infants can thrive through sensory activities, socialization, and play!
Enrollment: 8
Staff Ratio: 1 to 4
Infants 1-16Months
Energy. Excitement. Motion. These are the qualities that define a toddler and they are used in this program to power positive learning experiences.
Enrollment: 14
Staff Ratio: 1 to 7
Toddler 16-33Months
The goal of the Preschool years is to prepare a child for kindergarten! A solid social emotional foundation is key for our preschoolers.
Enrollment: 40
Staff Ratio: 1 to 10
Preschool 31+Months
Understand our Difference
Why Choose Aunty's Child Care
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Home-like Environment
Children are comfortable and confident in Aunty's, feeling safe and secure to explore their surroundings and learn every day!
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Love & Logic Guidance
We utilize Love & Logic Guidance. It's important that we build caring and respectful relationships with one another and our Earth!
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Hands-On Play Approach
We believe children learning by doing! Instead of simply listening, we encourage engagement with the subject matter. Hands on learning through play is the key to synaptic formations for early brain development and lifelong love of learning and exploration!
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Outdoor Play
We recognize the importance of being outside in the fresh air! Children learn best outside, so we are adventurous, even in winter!
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Kindergarten Readiness
We focus heavily on social and emotional kindergarten readiness — not just reading and writing, but a solid foundation of manners, respect, and more.
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Healthy Eating
Aunty's Child Care boasts an eco-healthy rating. Healthy eating is an important cornerstone of our program! Take a tour to learn more!
Healthy Eating is Our Cornerstone!
Healthy Food for Growing Children
Healthy eating is the cornerstone of our program at Aunty's Child Care. Eating habits form early, so we strive to promote healthy eating habits and a positive food relationship across all ages!
Enriching Activities. Every Day.
Cornerstone Elements of Aunty's Child Care
At Aunty's, our days are packed with play based learning, as well as plenty of activities that allow children to exercise their creativity and practice important skills to help them prepare for kindergarten and beyond!
We love learning how to play nicely with others, share our toys, and get outside into the fresh Duluth air!
read moreGardening
Gross Motor
Art
Fine Motor
Outdoor
Free Play
Napping
Cornerstone
Elements
Gardening
When the season allows, we try to bring our garden to life! We grow a collection of fruits and veggies with the help of the kids.
Gross Motor
We do many gross motor skills during group time such as running, jumping, walking backwards, etc. We love doing exercises to get the wiggles out of our bodies!
Art
We love arts and crafts! We have a huge art closet stuff full of supplies. We like to stretch our imaginations, think outside the box, and use fine motor skills.
Fine Motor
We work on fine motor skills by incorporating a variety of activities that utilize crayons, pencils, markers, safety scissors, puzzles, games and more.
Outdoor
We have a huge yard that we spend as much time in, weather permitting. We frequently find exciting and new activities to participate in outdoors!
Free Play
We include plenty of free play time during our day. This allows kids time to interact with each other and use their imaginations!
Napping
Each child is provided with a safe and comfortable sleeping space with separate bedding that is regularly washed.
Aunty's Child Care | Duluth, Minnesota
Frequently Asked Questions
What is your rate?
We charge weekly rates! Infants and Toddlers are $265, potty-trained preschoolers are $240. We accept drop in children for a flat rate of $53 per day. We do not offer a discount for part time schedules.
I see TV’s in your classrooms. How often do the children watch TV?
TV’s are used no more than 20 minutes per day. They are utilized as a teaching tool or transitional tool. The only time movies are allowed are for special occasions! For example, the preschoolers may watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as part of their Halloween party or the toddlers may watch a little bit of the movie Frozen during a pajama day party. It is not a common occurrence and is a special treat.
Do you accept children with food allergies?
Absolutely. We are well versed in allergy control and response. We are not a peanut free facility, therefore, cannot accommodate anaphylactic peanut allergy reactions. We are allergy-friendly including lactose, soy, gluten, nuts, and others. We work with the children to include them in owning their allergy and asking if meals contain allergens. After all – they have to live with their allergy for life, so we want them to take charge of it from an early age! We work with parents to supplement foods we are unable to accommodate for children with allergies and all staff are trained in allergy response.
What curriculum do you use?
As a Parent Aware rated center, we use an approved curriculum called 123Learn. We also enrich it with many resources including Pocket of Preschool, Totschooling, PK Printable Fun, Prekinders and Teaching 2 & 3 year olds. Our teachers are all very good at lesson planning. We have a year long curriculum that features a monthly overall theme with segments throughout the month to build on. For example, February’s theme is Science and Technology, and the topics to explore are transportation, weather, the water cycle, baking and cooking, light, space, time, inventing, machines, and physics. Of course, this is a lot to talk about in a month, so our teachers pick and choose to keep things interesting year to year!
What is your daily schedule?
The daily schedule depends entirely on the season and changes with the weather. We keep it stable for the children and post each schedule in each classroom.
What are the ratios of caregiver to child?
We follow state-mandated child care ratios — Infants have a ratio of 1:4, Toddlers is 1:7 and Preschool is 1:10. There is an administrative staff in the building from about 8:00-4:30 to provide an extra set of hands and support as needed as well as a ‘float staff’ who typically works 7:30-4:00!
What kind of food do you serve?
We have a beautiful commercial kitchen on site. It is licensed with the state of Minnesota and we follow all food safety requirements. We take pride in the meals we serve! Not only are they delicious but they are packed with nutrition. We are big on steaming and roasting and seasoning well! We limit salt, butter and oil. We cook with only canola oil as we limit soy as well. We only offer and allow low sugar foods, including for parties and special events.
How often do the children play outdoors?
DAILY! We are huge on outdoor play, it is a necessary component of a good childhood! Our goal is for children in our center to spend 1,000 hours a year outside. It’s a huge goal that we accomplish by bringing the learning outside! We go on walks, venture to the woods, go to the lakewalk, and play in our lovely yard! We require good winter gear as the cold does not stop us from going outside. We are active and love it!
When do you close your center?
We close for select holidays throughout the year and a few scheduled teacher in-service days. They are always published in our parent handbook, on our website (on the Parent Resources page), in each classroom, and on our bulletin board in the front hall. Additionally, we send many reminders throughout the year. We may close for inclement weather, and that would be on a case-by-case basis. It is our goal to stay open and available for working families.
How do you communicate with parents?
We use Brightwheel throughout the day to communicate with parents. It is our preferred method. However, if there is a sensitive issue, sometimes a phone call or text from the owner’s phone or an email is best. If that happens, usually a note telling the parent to contact the owner is also put in Brightwheel. We also send out monthly newsletters in Brightwheel to all families that discuss upcoming events in each room, a general overview of the center, and any topics that arise that need to be communicated.
We love to hear from our parents!
Comments From Parents
Aunty's Child Care is proud to support families in the Duluth, Minnesota region. Hear from our happy parents!
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Happy Parent
“Aunty’s is amazing! You can tell in an instant that they truly care about the kids growth and well-being. It’s not just about watching someone’s kid because “someone’s gotta do it”. The activities, the games they play with the kids, to the nutritional foods they eat, it’s all outstanding.”
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Happy Parent
“Couldn’t be more of a godsend. This is how I’ve always wished that all child cares were structured. I’ve watched all of the providers demonstrate true compassion for their jobs. My boy has grown in ways that are unimaginable.”
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Happy Parent
“Staff at Aunty’s have been amazing! They are supportive and have a child care philosophy that matches mine wonderfully. Environmentally friendly, home-cooked meals, a lot of outdoor time, and so much more!”