Starting a childcare center for the first time? It’s normal to feel a mix of excitement and overwhelm, especially when it comes to navigating a long daycare supply list.
Between must-haves and nice-to-haves, it’s easy to get lost in endless daycare equipment lists (and worry about your budget, too). But don’t stress! We’ve got you covered.
Our ultimate daycare supplies and equipment list breaks down exactly what you’ll need for infants and toddlers, so you can shop smarter, not harder.
Ready to check off your list? Let’s dive in.
The Importance of Daycare Supplies
For little ones, play isn’t just fun, it’s how they learn. Infants and toddlers thrive on hands-on exploration, where every touch, movement, and interaction helps them grow.
Such an environment is so important that it’s backed by regulations, too! The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requires childcare centers operating for more than 3 hours a day to provide well-equipped interest areas. These spaces encourage creativity, problem-solving, and social skills, helping children develop physically, emotionally, and cognitively—all at their own pace.
That’s why choosing the right supplies for daycare isn’t just about filling shelves; it’s about creating an environment where curiosity leads the way.
Daycare Supplies Checklist
Every great daycare runs on thoughtful and intentional supplies. Here’s what to look for when stocking up:
✔ Variety and Inclusion: Rotate materials regularly (indoors and out) to spark curiosity and celebrate diversity—through culture, race, gender, and ability.
✔ Safety and Accessibility: Choose age-appropriate, high-quality items that are well-maintained and within easy reach for little hands.
✔ Developmental Fit: Match supplies to each child’s growing skills, so learning feels fun, not frustrating.
✔ Flexible Play: Organize spaces for mixed-age groups, encouraging solo exploration, teamwork, and everything in between.
102 Must-Have List of Items Needed to Start a Daycare
Ready to stock up? Before you start shopping, here's one crucial step: Always cross-check with your local state requirements. Regulations vary, and the last thing you want is to invest in supplies that don't meet compliance standards.
Once you've verified the rules, use this comprehensive checklist of 102 essentials to build a daycare space that's safe, engaging, and perfectly equipped for little learners.
Drama activity materials
Props such as soft dolls, doll accessories, toy telephones, and play buildings encourage children to expand their creative horizons and repurpose the materials to get their imagination running.
- Culturally diverse action figures and adult figure dolls
- Soft animals with building accessories, like a barn or a cage
- Cardboard boxes to build props such as furniture or a crown for a king
- Caps and costumes for different weather and jobs
- Flags of different nationalities
- Cultural artifacts such as blankets and fabrics
- Child-sized pots, pans, spoons, stoves, dishes, and ladles
- Child-sized bucket, mop, broom, dust pan
- Toy telephone
- Prop boxes for themes such as a vet’s clinic, restaurant, hospital, or a campsite
Fine and gross motor supplies list
Grasping and manipulating small and large objects helps a child engage in developmentally appropriate practices. While kids can boost their fine motor skills by exercising smaller muscles, they can improve their gross motor skills by making large muscle movements required for sitting, crawling, and running.
11. Stacking rings and shape sorters
12. Teething toys for infants, such as a rattle
13. Beads and balls of different colors and sizes
14. Measuring cups with rounded edges and lids
15. Board games and puzzles
16. Wooden straws and sticks
17. Pegs to hang on the walls
18. Child-safe sewing materials like buttons and wool
19. Mittens and gloves
20. Riding toys like scooters and a tricycle
Block activity daycare equipment List
Interlocking or metallic blocks of different colors, shapes, sizes, and textures can activate the children’s senses and help them build what they envision, making it a must-have choice for daycare supplies.
21. Small interlocking blocks for building a castle, a building, and a mode of transportation
22. Medium or large interlocking blocks, like Lego
23. Magnetic blocks, like Tinker Toys
24. Lightweight, soft blocks for infants that may or may not make noise
25. Foam containers
26. Discarded crates
27. Hollow blocks with both sides open
28. Cardboard blocks
29. Wooden blocks
30. Building block action figures
Preschool equipment for reading zones
Apart from ensuring you’ve age-appropriate material in the reading zone for preschoolers, a couple of child-sized chairs, soft pillows, and green planters can enliven the room and motivate them to curl up with their favorite book.
31. Comfy seating, like floor cushions
32. Storage options for your books
33. Indoor plants
34. Wall shelves
35. Bookcase
36. Preschool supplies like behavior charts to brighten up the reading room
37. Soft rugs and mats
38. Bean bags
39. Fur throw
40. Mood lighting for extra ambiance
Music and movement supplies
Dancing can be accompanied by playing songs to give the children a pause between activities. However, they shouldn’t be left on as background music since it’s shown to affect memory tasks in toddlers adversely.
41. Rattles, windchimes, and toys with bells inside them
42. Headphones
43. Cultural dance videos
44. Cultural music in diverse languages
45. Music tapes carrying age-appropriate song genres like nursery rhymes, folk songs, classics, blues, and jazz tunes
46. Culturally distinct costumes worn during local dances
47. Music boxes or musical mobiles
48. Child-appropriate musical instruments like guitar, harmonica, banjo, piano, xylophones, drums, tambourines, and cymbals
49. Pompoms for daycare dances
50. Scarves and capes
Math and science daycare materials
A daycare supply list is incomplete without materials that allow kids to explore quantity, size, and shape and discover flora and fauna in the natural world. As children age, you’ll need to start investing in more STEM toys to boost their academic temperament.
51. Balance scale and weights
52. Magnetic shapes and numbers (or numbers and shapes books)
53. Games like dominos, number lotto, playing cards, and dice
54. Ruler and a meter tape
55. Geometry set
56. Calculator and stopwatch
57. Natural items like flowers, shells, rocks, sand, twigs, branches, and terrarium
58. Globe, atlas, and a map
59. Worm composter
60. Magnifying glass
Health and safety gear
When you’re running a daycare, the safety and well-being of the kids are your number one priority. By buying the right daycare materials, you will be prepared to avoid any untoward incidents or accidents.
61. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
62. First aid kit, comprising a thermometer, gauze, bandage, antiseptic cream, disinfectant, etc.
63. Electrical outlet cover
64. Fire extinguisher
65. Child lock for cabinets and shelves
66. Child-safe door knob cover
67. Safety gate
68. Ice pack
69. Hand sanitizer and a liquid hand soap
70. Disposable hand gloves
Kitchen and cleaning equipment
Let’s be real, kids are walking mess magnets. Between snack time spills, sticky fingers, and all those "oops" moments, your daycare needs a solid cleaning system to keep things fresh and sanitary.
High-traffic areas like kitchens and bathrooms deserve extra attention with commercial-grade cleaning supplies.
71. Glass and multi-surface disinfectant cleaning liquid
72. Vacuum cleaner
73. Bleach
74. Dishwasher
75. Cleaning cloths
76 .Cooking utensils
77. Eating utensils like knives and forks
78. Paper towels
79. Sippy cups for children
80. A week’s supply of food stock preserved in a freezer
Daycare equipment list for furniture
Ensuring you have ample furniture for your daycare is essential to running it smoothly. Suppose you have more children than chairs in a classroom. In that case, chaos can quickly ensue, with children fighting over seating.
81. Cribs and strollers for infants
82. High chairs for adults and low chairs for toddlers
83. Tables of appropriate height for children to write, draw and eat
84. Storage space for children’s belongings
85. Booster seats
86. Nap mats
87. Step stools
88. Child-safe mirrors
89. Soft blankets and pillows
90. Wheelchair or a walker to make the daycare accessible for all
Childcare technology
Technology can drive much-needed innovation in childcare centers, engaging kids in key skills such as computational thinking that will empower them to become global digital citizens of tomorrow. It can also help eliminate manual tasks that eat up a teacher’s or an administrator’s time and pull them away from their center of attention: children.
91. Interactive screens
92. SMART Boards
93. Augmented reality games and toys
94. Digital camera
95. iPad, tablet, and smartphone
96. Play-based digital language tools, like talking books
97. Digital word banks
98. Word processors
99. Computers
100. Printer
101. Bluetooth-enabled speakers
102. Daycare management software like illumine
Need More Guidance in Starting and Managing a Daycare?
Here are a few more in-depth articles to help you out:
A step-by-step guide on how to run a daycare
How to Streamline Daycare Reporting
Daycare Business Financial Planning: Using Data-Informed Decision-Making
How Childcare Centers Can Use AI for Lesson Planning
How Facebook Lead Ads Can Help Boost Childcare Admissions
Optimize your childcare business with illumine
Between registration forms, parent updates, and safety logs, childcare administration can swallow your entire day. That’s where illumine comes in.
Our automation platform quietly handles the repetitive tasks (attendance, billing, compliance tracking) while you focus on what really matters: nurturing children and growing your business.
Join 3,000+ centers already using illumine.
✔ All-in-one tool: Handles daily reports, tuition collection, attendance, parent updates, and registrations, freeing your team to focus on the kids, not paperwork.
✔ Flexible and multilingual: Works with any curriculum (Montessori, EYFS etc.) and supports 20+ languages for easy communication.
✔ Futuristic AI: AI-powered writing for clear communication, translations across 20+ languages, instant lesson plan generation, AI-powered observations, and more.
Whether you’re running an in-home center or a franchise childcare business, one thing’s for sure: your daycare supplies list is incomplete without Illumine. Get a free demo today to streamline your childcare center operations.
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