What are your 7-11 year olds interested in?

[NewInKew]

Hello There,

Hopefully you're all out enjoying the glorious sunshine rather than stuck on the laptop indoors like me

I'm just about to start work as a Volunteer at a local Out Of School Club and started to have a little panic after realising that I don't actually know a single child over the age of 5! I'll be working with children aged 7-11 and was hoping you could give me the low-down on what it is children this age are actually interested in? What do they watch on the tele? What music do they listen to? What kind of things would they want to do in an Out of school club?

Hope you can help save me from being branded the "clueless out of touch mum" who talks to the kids about Peppa Pig (no, I wouldn't really!)

Differs hugely between boys and girls at this age.

My experience (2 boys, age 7 & 10):

• lego
• football
• table football
• charging around & making a lot of noise
• play fighting
• building dens
• things like scalextrix/ magnetix/ marble runs
• ball games - swingball is a HUGE hit
• cards - Top Trumps/ Match Attax etc
• collecting stuff
• comics (Beano/ Star Wars)
• Harry potter
• Spy & adventure stuff

Couldn't tell you about girls, but it all seems to be pink and involve ponies.....

My nieces, 7 and 9, like:

playing musical instruments
reading
drawing
writing stories
pets
youtube (would look at that all day if possible)
playing with make up
lego
making things, sewing, craft stuff
films

They don't really listen to music yet.
They hate pink stuff with a passion (pink phase ended at 5/6 years with both).

DS is interested in cricket, rugby and music. He wouldn't be particularly interested in doing an after-school club, but I checked with him to see what they do at his when he occasionally visits, and what it is he enjoys there

1. Computers - they have it partly in one of the computer rooms and partly in a larger gym type room
2. Chess
3. Reading
4. Tea - they just give them a couple of sandwiches not a meal, as such.
5. Drawing and art stuff
6. Bingo
7. Poker (I did not know they played poker at his after school club and I'd be surprised if the head knew - but still, it'd be a pretty cool thing to do to run a poker school after school...)

All trading games (match attax etc)are banned at school. They don't do any physical games either - as they'll already have dome some form of sports that day.

Thank you all for sharing this valuable information with me! When it's all written down in front of you, it seems totally obvious, but I honestly had a complete blank when trying to envisage what primary school children actually do in their spare time.

Quattrocento - I'm thinking an after school poker club is utter genius. Surely there are plenty of learning opportunities in mastering poker? I can just see myself getting all enthused about championing this to the rest of the playworkers...

NormaSnorks & Mrs John Deere - there seems to be a bit of an overlap with the girls and boys you've mentioned which is encouraging. Most encouraging of all from a mum of a 3 year old girl is that there is an end in sight with the "pink phase"

Could someone also be so kind as to shed some light on what "trading games" are? Match attax means nothing to me.

• Lego
• Club Penguin
• Star Wars
• Judo
• Pets
• Bard Games
• Chess

I would also add Quattros things to my list in terms of 'nice quiet games'. DS1 (10) would happily play chess or draughts. Card games like Uno suit them both. Trading games are where kids collect cards of some sort, or small fairly cheap items (Lego mini-figs; Go-Gos; Magna-Men) and then trade them with each other to try to get the complete set. Probably not appropriate for an after-scholl club anyway as there are always arguments about 'he took my 5* player card' or 'she promised to give me the yellow one..'

On the odd occasions when mine go to after school club they tend to be outside in the playground running about. I find after a day spent concentrating at school they need to burn off the energy (same as at home).

You may find it difficult to get them to sit down and 'engage' with games /crafts etc for too long in my experience (especially the 7-8 yr olds?)

DS-10: Star Wars, computer games, digging dens out, some Pop Music
DD-8: Horses, Animals, Pop Music and Pop stars, Make-up, Judo, craft activities

Looking at their mates, many of the boys play or follow football, and most have several games consoles (Xbox, PS3, Wii, etc.). DC boy cousins the same age are very keen on telly shows and latest release movies.

Poker sounds like genius to me. Or if that's not PC, there are lots of other card games that could be just as good.

All very interesting to me. I will have to visit the Club and find out what exactly they are trying to promote/achieve. Because as you say - I would have thought that at the end of a school day most 7-11 year olds just want to blow off steam. So I guess my task will be to think of interesting (and if possible educational) ways for them to do that in some kind of structured way.

Thank you so much for your responses. I feel much better prepared for catering to the needs of my target audience now