The Director's Planner: Week of October 13th, 2025
"The suspense is terrible. I hope it’ll last.” — Willy Wonka
Thank you to all who responded to my poll last week! I have been playing around with the best time of week to send my weekly planner and would love your feedback on when it would be most helpful for you to receive it. Feel free to comment on the post with a different time if you don’t see an option you like below!
💡 This Week’s Thought
“The suspense is terrible. I hope it’ll last.” — Willy Wonka
Not sure I have ever thought of my day from this perspective. Typically, I dread the suspense and instead call it my good friend, anxiety. Who is going to call out today? Which parent is waiting outside my office? And why TF is there glitter in my eyeball again?!
Regardless of how it makes us feel, suspense is part of the job. And it is never going away. So if you are in the right headspace today, take a moment to reframe your mindset from “how can I make the suspense stop?” to “How can I find the joy in knowing my role is so unique, I never quite know what’s coming next?”
Maybe even start your own suspense log to look back at the end of each month at all of unexpected moments you handled in a day! (Check out a version I made just for you below!)
✨ Something to Use
This is a fun one… Your very own Suspense Log! This one-page printable gives you a place to rate your daily “suspense level,” track unexpected WTF moments, and laugh at the unexpected chaos (instead of cry about it.) If the only predictable part about our job is the unpredictability, may as well have a little fun with it!
I am also working on an easy to use conference sheet for those who responded that it would be helpful. Keep your eyes peeled!
If you find any of my resources to be beneficial, the best way you can show your appreciation is by sharing The Director’s Collective with other leaders in the ECE field. Thank you so much!
📅 What’s Coming Up
Each week I break down your to-do list into bite-sized tasks so you can stay on top of running your program without feeling overwhelmed.
I. Send a Reminder about Halloween Expectations
If you haven’t done so yet, this is the perfect time to send a little note to families outlining your expectations for Halloween. Some centers encourage costumes, others encourage families to send their children in black and orange. You may be the type that hosts a trunk-or-treat, or the type that doesn’t celebrate at all. However your center decides to approach the holiday is just fine! But it is important to ensure your families are on the same page and know what to expect or the day could go off the rails real quick…
II. Conduct your monthly fire/tornado drill
Let’s get ahead of it this month! For those in tornado states (ha, that is a funny way to describe them) this is the last month you need to run a tornado drill as well. As always, linking my drill tracker HERE if you prefer to use this over a state provided log 🙂
III. Get Your Pumpkins in Order!
If you are following along with any of my October family/staff connection ideas, this is the week to do the following, depending on which Halloween event you are hosting!
For those creating a mini pumpkin patch at your center, be sure to buy your pumpkins this week! Sometimes local pumpkin patches or grocery stores will donate materials for your center.
For those hosting a pumpkin carving contest, send an email to your community (staff, families, or both) this week! Remember that I have a pre-written email you can edit in my October Resource Toolkit!
🌟 Director Spotlight
Don’t forget to hit reply and tell me what you (or a fellow Director) are doing that you’re proud of, big or small. I want you to brag! Let me hear it!
And that’s it for this week! Easy as A, B, C, 1, 2, 3.
As always, I am so grateful to all of my readers who share my work with other Directors in the field. Together we will do wonderful things!