Mixed ages?

Hi,
I've just started my home daycare and am wondering about pros and cons of mixed ages vs. similar ages. I have a 5-year-old girl who is in school half-days, 2-year-old girl who can tend to be a bit clingy, have just signed on an easygoing 3-year-old boy, and am only taking one more child, possibly a 1-year-old boy, but have a feeling that the 1-year-old could change the dynamics quite a bit. What are you preferences and experiences when it comes to mixed ages and/or genders (I have girls and know many boys can be a bit more lively, but dont' have lots of experience with lively boys).
Thanks!

Your group are all older, how did you do that? All I ever have for interview requests are new babies with the mothers returning from their mat leaves so I tend to start them at age 1 about 95% of the time.

I do prefer a group that is all similar in age and right now I have one 4 year old girl in JK, but the other four children are 2.5 years old and younger. I find when you have a group of babies all growing and learning together it is much easier for planning activities and crafts and cuts down on the variety of toys you have to put out every morning.

I tend to gear my enrollment to one infant around a year, an 18 month old and the rest over 2 years of age whatever mix comes along. IME as soon as an infant is mobile and the older children can 'interact' with them they will pair up by interests and personality regardless of 'age' ~ until he left for school I had 4.5 year old who loved to play with the 14 month old in care cause they both were into cars and the older one was the 'mentor' to the babe on how to make his car move and so forth.

I prefer having minimal infants for various personal reasons ~ its the recommended best practice for the Ontario Day Nursery Act to have no more than 2 under the age of 2 and I try to follow the DNA as close as possible, I do not feel confident I can safely evacuate multiple non walking / just waking infants in a fire due to the structure of my home and the fact that in a true fire you have less than 60 seconds before smoke can envelop the home so I like the majority of my crew to be able to 'follow direction' to evacuate in an emergency and be able to be out of the house in one quick trip and my most important reason is my back has a herniated disc which never properly healed and will bulge out and hit the nerve if overstressed so I am just not up for repetitive lifting and bending into highchairs and pack and plays and stairs and so forth or the pushing of quad strollers so I need all but 1 of my crew to be able to walk to local parks and outings because the single stroller is about as much as I can manage and not risk throwing my disc out again ~ I injured my back working in infant / toddler room for 9 years as an ECE and well in hindsight I now understand why many centres require staff to move around age groups every year cause we are just not built to work long term with 'wee ones' over and over again before we break :(

the one year old will def change the dynamic of things because all the others are at the "independant" stages and this little guy will need alot of extra care and attention. But...not for long. Sounds like you have a pretty nice mix of kids, you have a few to "help" more, and the others can watch the older ones and get a better grasp of responsibility and maturity, not to mention I really enjoy having the older kids communicate with the younger kids, they pick up vocalization and speach alot quicker when they have someone to model it all day. Sounds like a nice mix!!!! :)