This week’s local professional is Pat Gentz. Her question is related to working with multi-age children. Click on her name to listen. (It may take a minute to load) Feel free to share this message with anyone that you feel would benefit from it 🙂
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Thanks Pat!
What a great summary about the benefits of mixed-group care! Pat hit on all the best points, including the fact that nurturing can come from adults AND other children. Wonderful job!
Don’t you just love her?! Pat, who is a friend of mine and in my Bible study, is one of the best child care providers in the County, if not the state. As a group child care provider myself for 30 years, I agree that the kids of different ages really thrive together. I care for one infant, one toddler and up to 8 preschoolers daily. The infants and toddlers LOVE the big kids. It does help the bigger kids to learn to nurture a younger child. A lot of kids now a days are from 1 or 2 children families. It’s more of a family setting, vs. a school setting although we do a curriculum daily.