Penelope's Place Childcare

Penelope’s Place uses a multi-age approach as a means of supporting children’s natural curiosity, confidence and kindness while creating a climate of expected cooperation. Older learners help younger children advance while, at the same time, practicing and refining newly acquired skills by teaching. Older children take leadership roles and serve as mentors to help create a “family of learners” who support and care for each other.

Mixed-age groups encourage cooperation, while single age groups tend to promote competition; for example, if everyone in the class is 5 years old, how can a child establish a sense of personal uniqueness and individuality?

At Penelope’s Place, we recognize that every child makes valuable contributions. The built-in expectation that everyone is included is one of the many benefits of multi-age groupings. It also fosters responsibility, respect, and caring for others. Mixing ages provides a context for children to appreciate stages of learning, and highlight the progression of skill development, thereby reminding children how far they have come, and supporting confidence in their abilities and their future development.

Unlike puppies, children are not born in litters, yet we tend to educate children as “litter mates”! Age segregated groups support adults in planning and delivering instruction to larger groups of children. It is important to note that, there is no research that supports the idea that children born within 12 months of one another should learn the same skills at the same time. Indeed, single age groupings often pressure children to conform to same age peers and tend to penalize children who fall outside the typical range – either higher or lower performing. Same age groups evidence more one-upmanship, bullying, and domineering behavior.

On the other hand, mixed age groups support the fundamental human need for a sense of uniqueness, belonging and self worth. Older children model more sophisticated approaches to problem solving and younger children are able to accomplish tasks they would not be able to do without assistance. This dynamic increases the older child’s level of confidence and independence. Without models, children may struggle to develop complex, cooperative play scripts. Mixing ages supports more sophisticated play themes which lead to acquisition of early numerical and phonemic academic skills naturally occurring in play.

The Oregon Kindergarten Assessment, part of a federal kindergarten readiness program, focuses on areas that research has strongly linked to 3^rdgrade reading competency and future academic success: self-regulation, interpersonal skills, and awareness of pre-academic letter and number concepts. Sadly, (but somewhat understandably), many folks focus more on letter and number recognition than the social skills needed to function successfully in a group. Children, who are struggling to establish themselves as part of the group, have less ability to focus on achieving academically. The children at Penelope’s Place learn in a mixed age group and have daily opportunities to understand, practice and refine the complex interpersonal skills needed for future success.