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Do you ever feel like some kids expect you to just sit and entertain them all day?
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I don't believe in adults playing with kids. They have each other for that. -
ugh! i have a 4 year old (who attends preschool full time and is just here afterschool). she follows me around like a lost puppy. i can totally tell the cram every moment of her day at school with something. she can't do anything without direction. i have taken to nannyde's saying....
GO PLAY TOYS!!!!!:
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I teach here, but even during free play it is still organized play. I make sure that they have something to do... one day it will be all about blocks during free play another maybe about water, or kitchen play. I set the tone and they run with it....
I set up the tables for them to play and let them go at it...Comment
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My kids keep themselves pretty busy and entertained for the most part. When I find they are becoming bored I redirect them to another activity to peak their interest.
I spend a good portion of the day actively "playing" with the children, and I'd like to know why PPs do not?? (TIA)Comment
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My kids don't need an adult in their play. They are PHENOMENAL toy players from the time they are mobile till they are five. We stay out of their play and allow them to have a childhood of excellent toys and excellent friends.
I love just watching kids from age one to five just PLAYING with each other. They can play with kids older, younger, same age... flow from one toy to the next... they don't fight... they don't have conflict... they just PLAY.
I was raised in the sixties and believe me it didn't cross my parents and relatives MINDS to play with little kids. We had each other and far less toys than my dck's have and we did GREAT. These guys are so fortunate to have such a massive and varied toy collection to play with and seven mates who they have grown up with to play with.
It's a great gig for all and I wouldn't change a thing.
May I ask why you play with your kids? I'm always intersted in knowing how other providers do it. (I ask that sincerely... I'm interested when I hear providers saying they spend the day playing with kids. I can't imagine doing that.)Comment
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I feel a little bit better now. I don't actively play all day with my dck's too. I just sit back and monitor them, do some crisis management if necessary, and redirect them to another activity if they need some assistance with it. They should be playing with other kids. That's why I opened my daycare. So that my kids could have playmates! Sure, I'll play board games with them occasionally or do some teacher-directed activities and crafts during our "school time". But for the most part, the kids have free play and do an excellent job playing with each other and making their own play decisions!
I used to have 2 SA's who expected me to entertain them for every minute of the day! It was so exhausting and with their low attention span, I ran out of things for them to do!
Thankfully, I am SA-free now and don't have to worry about that.
Anyway, you aren't the only one who expects the kids to play with each other. They don't need you to entertain them all the time!Comment
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I am in the middle on this one... Yes i believe 100 % that the kids need to learn to lead themself and allow for one of the children or several of the children to be a leader to their friends, while still playing activley with their peers.My kids don't need an adult in their play. They are PHENOMENAL toy players from the time they are mobile till they are five. We stay out of their play and allow them to have a childhood of excellent toys and excellent friends.
I love just watching kids from age one to five just PLAYING with each other. They can play with kids older, younger, same age... flow from one toy to the next... they don't fight... they don't have conflict... they just PLAY.
I was raised in the sixties and believe me it didn't cross my parents and relatives MINDS to play with little kids. We had each other and far less toys than my dck's have and we did GREAT. These guys are so fortunate to have such a massive and varied toy collection to play with and seven mates who they have grown up with to play with.
It's a great gig for all and I wouldn't change a thing.
May I ask why you play with your kids? I'm always intersted in knowing how other providers do it. (I ask that sincerely... I'm interested when I hear providers saying they spend the day playing with kids. I can't imagine doing that.)
However, there are often times I will also get super silly put on a puppet show, get on the floor and play house or allow the kids to be the leader and just play with them. I feel it is important to connect with them while they are in my care and it helps me build that special bond that I have with each and every one of them. Sometimes they will come and ask me to play with them and this melts my heart, as I know that they not only see me as the adult in charge, but their friend.
I would say that I may play with them about an hour total through out the day, not including teaching time...Comment
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I also don't intervene when there is a problem. On our report cards, one of the criteria is problem solving and playing with others. If I continuely played with the children how would they learn to problem solve among each other.
I understand playing a game or teaching them something, but to get down and play my little pony isn't happening.Comment
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I use a buddy system of play where the kid with the greatest skill with whatever toy collection we have out is teamed up with the kid or kids with lesser skill. That way the kids teach the kids. I have enough of each set to have many kids playing with the same thing at the same time in almost all of our sets. I have enough "key" pieces to give everyone enough to go to town.
Right now my 22 mo old dcg is freakishly good at castle building. We have a quadruple set of these: http://www.melissaanddoug.com/castle...googleshopping and she can build pretty elaborate structures. Since she's the best at it... whenever she wants to get her "castle" on I team her up with one of the other kids. They learn from her and then they pass it to the next one.
Whatever they are good at they teach. This keeps the adults OUT of it other than calling the kids who aren't so good at it over to the kid who IS good at it.
We do this with all of our main sets. We have enough toys to really DO "go play toys" so they can get really good at many different types of self play.
The ones who are great toy pickeruperers are teamed with the ones who aren't so great. They are the ones who make sure it's a team effort. The oldest kid on each side of the rooms is responsible for checking to make sure everything is back in it's place and it's done properly before they say they are done. The oldest in the house checks the younger kids side.
We have six right now with a new baby coming in a couple of weeks. The six kids are 22 mo to 4.5 years old. They can all talk and they can all clean. They rotate around each other and can be mixed and matched at the drop of a hat to do anything with any of the other kids. They have grown up together and usually by the end of the day they have all been teemed up with each of the other five kids for some type of play.
That system works for us. I don't allow best friends or selective friends as play mates. I want them all to play with same age... older.. and younger. If one of them starts preferring one kid over the other then we keep them apart for a week or two and get them in the swing of things with the other kids. Preference to one child weakens our system and shows a weakness in that child so we don't allow it. It almost always means the preferred child is the most entertaining (usually the oldest) to the one who is preferring. We don't want their play choice on them being entertained. Once they want to be entertained we rotate them to the child or children who is the least entertaining to them so they learn to be the ENTERTAINER. Being the entertainer strengthens the child and their play and makes our system work.
It sounds like it may be time consuming for the adults but really the whole adult interaction to make the system work is two/three minutes a day total. My staff assistant and I can see and correct in seconds and know when the right time is to switch things up. It requires so little adult involvement that the kids net a full day of calm broad play with all of the kids in the house.
They don't need an adult actually playing with them but my group does need an adult supervising and conducting their play so it flows without a hitch and everyone gets a great day of play under their belt by the time they go home. While we are supervising their play we can get everything done that we need to do for the business and for my home. As soon as the kids go down for a nap or walk out the door at the end of the day we are completely done with everything we need to do because we have time to get everything done while they are up.
If we played with them we would have to do a lot of the non direct care tasks while they were sleeping or gone and that would require higher fees. Our system nets happy adults, happy kids, EXCELLENT students when they go off to school and everything gets done day after day... week after week... decade after decade..
I hear about the "I play with kids" approach and really wonder how many providers survive past the first few years of doing day care. I've never tried it and know I would fail miserably at it immediately. I have read that the turnover for home day care is pretty high and the average provider only lasts a couple of years. I wonder how entertaining/playing with the kids relates to burn out and the short life span of the average home provider.
I know "I' couldn't last six months doing that. I'm almost to my second decade of doing home care and if my job was to play with the kids I would burn out within weeks. I don't have the skill set to play with kids.
I have mucho appreciation of the "professional child care providers" who do DAP and play and educate kids. I'm just better at being a babysitter. Deciding to just be a babysitter has been the single most important business decision I have made in my child care career. It's what's made me last for SO long in this business when the odds are so highly stacked against long term success.Comment
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So, nanny, may I ask what you and your assistant are doing while the kids are playing? Do you guys stand around and monitor the activity, or...? I'm curious because I don't play with my kiddos much (except to intervene in squabbles and suggest alternatives when someone's having troubles) but I find that I get very mind-numbingly bored out of my gourd if I just stand/sit and watch them for hours on end...Hee hee! Look, I have a signature!Comment
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i keep my kids pretty busy as well. and i DO play with them, teach them, and enjoy them, because I want to do it.
but i also agree with nannyde's method of playing.
the example in my first post should have been more clear i guess. the 4.5 yr old i talk about cannot play for even a minute without being completely directed by ME. it takes alot of time, energy, and attention away from not only the routine tasks i need to complete (diaper changes, preparing lunch), but attention from the other children as well, and thats not fair to them. no one else can have my attention, or even sit on my lap, as she interjects herself. she expects 100% of the attention to be on her. i have tried repeatedly to engage her in many different activites, (for months) only to have her follow me as soon as i walk away. i cant even change a diaper without her whinning that i need to play with her. at 4.5 yrs old, i do feel she is too old for that type of behavior, and will continue now to tell her to "go play toys". she will be in kindy come fall, in a class of 20, not the 6 i have here. she needs to learn she's not the only one in the "group". i still pay attention to her, engage her, and love her up. but i'm not going to allow her to take that away from the others.
besides, my lap is big enough for everyone.
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Nan - have you ever had twins? I have a set right now that won't stay out of each others pockets but also are more apt to be rough with each other. I don't have a set up with nice small play areas it's more of an open concept. I separate but they just go back like magnets.
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