Cm's how much do you spend on arts and crafts? and food?

[omfgkillmenow]

I have a mindee that wants to paint/stick and glue all the time. But not actually, he just likes to squirt out all the paint and glue on the paper, wasting it all. His big sister made a picture and used £3 worth of feathers, sequins and bits and bobs that I had expected to last for ages!

Also I have told my after school parents that I will provide snack of toast and fruit. However they keep asking for roasted cheese, ham sandwiches, and tortilla wraps. I'm spending about £2 a day each feeding them and I only charge £3.50 per hour.

Im making just under £100 a week but seem to be spending so much that sometimes I'm working for about £4 an hour!! And its hard work!!

I think you might need to be a bit more restrictive about what they're eating. Never mind that they're asking for things, if you just say "No, sorry, there's toast with butter, jam or honey, a yoghurt or fruit" then they have clear choices and you can keep your costs down.
For the craft stuff I buy things at The Works, Poundland or we collect things while we're out and about to use (pinecones, to pva and glitter most recently). Have little trays or use the cheap plastic Ikea plates to put some paint/glue/materials out for them to use, you can limit how much they're using then.

I only have babies at the moment so not much spending on feathers...

I would only leave a few bits out, in a small box. Put the paint in small containers (I use ice trays with small quantities of paint and I put the glitter in the paint)

I buy rolls of paper from Ikea and it costs nothing

Use black paper and draw with chalk. It makes lovely drawings and costs very little.

Do you have a white board? they love drawing on it and then cleaning it!

For the food, I don't have any suggestionos, apart from saying no. They get what you serve them. They wouldn't have that option at after school club or nursery. As long as it's heathy snacks.

I have just started saying no, Im pretty racked with guilt tho as they seem hungry, especially the boys. I said no to a third apple last night and he went in the huff. But will persevere.

You do need to be firm! My contract states fruit as after school snack or biscuits. Any thing else they want to eat after school the parent provide ( fruit flakes, yoghurts, etc) as for the arty crafty stuff we have a particular day each week we do it so it's not crazy arty every day and other days thy have free access to pencil , stencils, paper etc. ( plus all the other normal toys)

I would start saying no on the food front! An after school snack isn't supposed to be a main meal. And you could probably think about putting your prices up as well - I charge £5 an hour - or charging separately for food.

On the arts and crafts front, just limit what you give them. When it's gone, it's gone and they do something else. I hardly every buy feathers, sequins etc - maybe for special occasions - the rest of the time they cut out pictures from catalogues and magazines if they want stuff to stick. Knitting wool chopped up into short lengths is good value too, sweetie wrappers (save ALL of them from the Christmas Quality Street), leaves etc, and my own two get colossal fun out of a pillowcaseful of random sheeps' wool gathered from barbed-wire fences by their grandmother.

Oh, and rolls of value lining paper (wallpaper) from B&Q are great value, and they're thick enough that you can use both sides. :-)

It will cost far too much to give the children free reign on the craft goodies so you will definitely have to limit it. There is NO harm in saying no to more craft things or no to yet another snack!

feathers/ leaves/ twigs/stones.. all can be collected for free especially this time of year. also pine cones are great. encourage younger ones to collect throughout the day

OP -I provide a light tea but do wraps with ham most days as that's their favourite food.
I fed 7 children last night for about £3
Ham was a £1 (on offer at Morison's)
Wraps are about 82p
Apples £1.35 a bag.

But even a cooked tea of Fishfinger or breaded Goujons wouldn't cost me much more than £5.

They were too busy playing outside for desert but it would have been a can of rice pudding or a fromage frais.

I don't provide crisps / chocolate biscuits etc. But I do bake cakes/ flapjack.

I charge £10 for after school club. And I took £50 last night.
The job is demanding and you need to make money from it otherwise why would you do it?

We haven't got into the crafts yet as they are still playing out after school. But have you tried B&M for craft stuff? They don't always have a lot in but when they do its half the price of elsewhere.

We don't do "crafts" every day, at least not with expensive resources. I have crayons, pencils, chalks, paper and cardboard out all the time. Other stuff comes out as and when, and I put out a reasonable quantity and teach everyone to share it out fairly. I also keep boxes etc for junk modelling, scraps of dressmaking material as well as the pine cones, leaves and so on. Some days we have clay or playdough, lego, duplo mechano etc, all creative play but reusable. Other days we do other creative stuff like dressing up, puppet shows, making dens, singing and dancing.

I have had children in the past who would make a bee line for the most expensive art stuff and try to use as much as they could, even trying to stuff their bag with materials to take home for later. I have become firmer with children and parents on that subject and make it clear that art materials are for activities here, not a free takeaway.