New to minding - please help me cope with holidays and my own home too!!

[juslh]

Hello, any advice would be great from you folks that are more experienced than me! Im a few weeks into childminding, with a 3 and half year old and a 10 month baby. Its been fine so far, apart from struggling to get the baby to take naps..so lots of baby entertaining to do! But now I have my own children home too, a very boistereous 5 year old and another 3 and a half year old. Im finding that they just whip thro activity after activity in a whirlwind of excitement and with a baby around too its really hard to manage. Are there any obvious things I should/could be doing activity wise to keep them a bit more focussed? It was pretty chaotic to my mind. We were all of us exhausted by half 3 and still had an hour and a half to go...

[Berni's Babies]

Hello
My name is Berni and I have a great solution to the problem that you are facing. I recently looked after a child with suspected Autism. He also had Social Communication disorder, aswell as numerous other things!!! We created a visual timetable. Simply put, you take pictures of all of your resources and print them out and laminate them. Then you have a timetable for the day where you ask the children what theywould like to do and they choose activities. You need to stick velcro on the back. Before they can do the next activity, they have to put the first one away. I look after several children under the age of 7 years. All of them including the 18month olds can tidy up, take their shoes off before coming into the play room etc etc.

Hope that helps.
Berni

[gigglinggoblin]

Took me a while to realise you dont have to plan every minute. Children need to learn to entertain themselves and they develop through exploring and experimenting on their own (within reason obviously!). If you have the toys out just let them do their own thing, they will be perfectly happy and you wont be worn out!

[NI MINDER]

I agree with time to themselves. They learn a lot through discovery themselves with age appropriate toys. I noticed in the local playschool for 3 and 4 year olds that their morning time table includes two sessions of 'free-play' - which is probably a fair chunk of their 2 1/2 hours when you take account of break etc..

[miss mopple]

Get out and about. Honestly, its much easier when you have a few and the baby can sleep in the buggy. Long walks in the forest, parks etc. Thats pretty much all we do in the holidays and they love it

[The Juggler]

I agree, in the hols an outing/trip to park each morning or afternoon. Then in the house I have out smallworld and construction resources, the homecorner and the sandpit/water outside and free access to drwaing/gluing etc. I organise one activity each day indoors, the rest of the time they freeplay or I play board games or ball games with them if they want me.

[mufftie]

I was going to say that aswel get out with them , dosnt have to cost much , just feeding the ducks can be entertaining for a few hours and once back home they are generally ready to relax and chill a little

[Pipsqueak]

I agree. A balance of;
going out - even a little trip to the park
short planned activities
and time to themselves with you there if they need you

[juslh]

Thanks loads for all the replies, they're all really helpful. I have stopped panicing at last, its early days with it all and Im sure it will get easier!! I will be using lots of the advice given, so thanks again.