Books and mixed ages

[Maza]

Do you do book of the week/month?

Just when I think I am finally comfortable with my planning, I go and get mixed ages!

For a good while, I've done 'book of the week' and have based our activities for the week around that book. I've been really happy with it and the children have always responded well to it.

However, from September, I will have quite big age ranges. The books that I would naturally choose for my pre-schoolers will be too long/sophisticated for the much younger ones. I experimented briefly with having two books - one for the older ones and one for the young toddlers, but it was a bit messy in my head, and was a lot to cram into the day. Obviously, we read a whole range of books on any given day, so they are all having their learning needs met, but I do like having a specific book to ground us and give us a focus.

We're constantly having to adapt the way we do things in this job!

No real point to this post - just rambling - unless anyone has any words of wisdom of course...

[loocyloo]

I do a 'book of the month' and sometimes it's aimed at the older children, and sometimes the younger ones. I find i automatically adapt what we're doing for the children that are there. They also take in what they need to take in. The simpler books can always have an extended activity for the older children.

I do a monthly book as some children only come one day a week, and so i have time over the month to introduce what i want to pull out of the book (and sometimes we don't do anything linked to the book at all!)

I'm going back to lots of babies and young toddlers so all change here too!

[Maza]

Thanks Loocyloo, some really good points there - think I was possibly overthinking it.

I can see how book of the month would work too. Most of mine are currently four or five days a week, but I love your solution for one dayers.