Question for Other Moms Who Have in Home Daycares

I have three children 11, 8 and 5 and 5 children I babysit, my children are a huge help with the other kids and love being responsible for a certain child for the day. I do give them different activities for different age groups and they have fun playing with the little kids. They feel like they are the adult ;-) I do also give them the alone time to do their own things and at the end of the week when M. gets paid they get a little award for the huge help. Hope this helps

M. S, Maybe you can let her help to plan the activities that day. Or let her do the same activity only on an older level. there are always art projects, reading projects etc that you have to scale down for the younger kids. just let her go a little further with it.

One Mom told me that her kids were her helpers when they were off of school. She told them that this is her job and she needs help.

I would approach it the same way. When you know a day off is coming up, tell her that you need her help that day and ask her for ideas on what fun things you both can do with the kids. You could even differentiate a bit. You could do fingerpainting with the little ones and get a paint by number for her to work on.

The other posts were all great ideas. I always had my girls be my "assistants" when they had a day off. It was also great preparation for when they got a little older and were asked by parents to be weekend babysitters. They were already very comfortable with the children and very experienced.
Another idea is to set aside some special acitivity that you can do with your own child while the younger children are napping. Just spending "Quiet time" with mom can be great for bonding. Hope this helps. :)