Acitvities for all ages?

[mummyjo]

Currently I care for lots of under 2's and lots of afterschoolies. I find that they rarely play together. I am worried that I am not providing opportunities for interaction for the different age groups.

What sort of activities do you provide that are suitable across the age groups?

[mufftie]

my after schoolies still like to play playdo and water play etc but you just have to watch they dont get too boisterous and push out the little ones

[Mouse]

I have to be honest, I don't try to find activities to suit all ages. If they want to play together I find they do it anyway and if they don't want to I'm not going to push it. I think that after a day at school they don't always want to come home and be pestered by toddlers!

We'll often have a singing/music session that they can all join in (though the lo's tend to wander off), or we'll do craft that can be adapted, eg. handprint reindeers for christmas - older ones pretty much do it themsleves & the youngers ones have help. Even then though, I'm likely to do the activity with the lo's during the day and let the older ones do it later.

Sand & water play & messy play are good across the ages, but not always possible if they want to do different things. And when you've got different ages it can take more supervision, which is sometmes difficult after school when you're trying to get tea/snack ready etc.

Rather than looking for activities for them all to do together, you could try suggesting other ways for them to interact. Eg. asking the older ones to help the lo's put their coats on, or asking if they'd like to read to the lo's?

[Blemblem]

I agree with you there. When the school children come back to mine, they all have snacks and drink together then the younger ones tend to play together and the older ones like playing cards together or watch telly.

When they have been at school all day learning the children need to relax.

[caresite]

I tried hand print and it worked. Can be messy but works.
you can ask them to works in pairs, one big with one litlle, provide paint (they can choose the colour) and paper (you can use individual sheets or A3 or even a one big sheet for all, let them paint the hands of each other, so you can go around and support, rather than do all by yourself , also provide wipes or flannels for cleaning hands.
With these activity you can work eyfs:
PSED - being with others, relationships, self-esteem, sense of community.
CLL - language for communication, handwriting.
CD - responding to experiencies, exploting media & materials.
PSRN - Numbers as labels for and counting, calculating and shape, space and measures.
PD - Health & bodily awareness, using equiment & materials.
KUW - Exploration & investigation.

You can then display it and talk about whatever you like: how they feel when doing it, if it was easy or hard task, and why; you can ask them to count how many hands they see, how many little ones, midlle sized and big, sort by size, colour; you can take pictures and add them to the display. Show the display to parents, if they have time ask them to join in. if it's too messy for them just outline the hand.

You can do these activity with feet and the whole body.