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MommyMuffin 10:16 AM 10-05-2010
Here is my problem:
I am just about to open in a few weeks. I currently have enrolled to start 3 children under 3, 1 being my own. I have 2 families with child/ren 3 - 5 years of age who want to know about curriculum and school readiness before deciding to enroll their children.
I really would like to do curriculum, hopefully someday I can do mothergoose time but right now I absolutely could not afford it. I have looked into making my own curriculum and you still need money to buy all the supplies and it takes lots of time to get ready.
With the pressure of being new and all, I am worried that I would not be able to get a curriculum together on my own. I dont know what to tell these parents. Of course I want them to enroll but really what can I offer their 3 - 5 year olds besides, playdoh and coloring and weather calendar? Any ideas
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BentleysBands 10:24 AM 10-05-2010
i have found that kidssoup and childcareland work great for us. i have paid for many curriculums before ...i just make up things monthly for the letters,numbers,etc and use the printoffs from the about sites
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SunflowerMama 10:25 AM 10-05-2010
Originally Posted by MommyMuffin:
Here is my problem:
I am just about to open in a few weeks. I currently have enrolled to start 3 children under 3, 1 being my own. I have 2 families with child/ren 3 - 5 years of age who want to know about curriculum and school readiness before deciding to enroll their children.
I really would like to do curriculum, hopefully someday I can do mothergoose time but right now I absolutely could not afford it. I have looked into making my own curriculum and you still need money to buy all the supplies and it takes lots of time to get ready.
With the pressure of being new and all, I am worried that I would not be able to get a curriculum together on my own. I dont know what to tell these parents. Of course I want them to enroll but really what can I offer their 3 - 5 year olds besides, playdoh and coloring and weather calendar? Any ideas

Have you thought about maybe including the cost of the curriculum with the rate? I just started Mother Goose this year and am LOVING it!! It's about $10/kid/month. Maybe you could just print up info on the curriculum to give the parents during interviews and such and then direct them to the site for additional information. Then just explain to them that the rate includes the cost of the curriculum for their child ($10/month).

I cover the cost of the curriculum for my dcks but there are also a lot of providers that have the parents cover the cost.
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broncomom1973 10:34 AM 10-05-2010
I purchased the Kidsparkz preschool curriculum off of ebay a couple of years ago and also just purchased her toddler 16-32 month curriculum. The preschool cost me around $30 and the toddler is a 1 year fee for access to her website (while she is still developing the toddler curriculum) for $20.
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Jewels 11:05 AM 10-05-2010
I started with carols affordable curriculum, before moving ot mother goose, Carols is pretty reasonable, I think I would spend, $40/month. But I agree with the previous poster, Include it in your rates, or ask them each for an additional $10/month, they'll pay, especially if they are asking. I also just dont like taking the time to do my own, I don't like the searching, preparing, and all the paper and ink I used, I dont like coming up with my own crafts, It was just to time consuming for me, But there are oter options, check out www.123learncurriculum.com you can purchase a disk with curriculum on it, you still have to print, but everything is there, and its cheap,.
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broncomom1973 12:03 PM 10-05-2010
Originally Posted by Jewels:
you can purchase a disk with curriculum on it, you still have to print, but everything is there, and its cheap,.
The preschool curriculum I use came on a disk too. The other is an online site where you have access to everything and you can print whatever items you want.
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momofsix 12:24 PM 10-05-2010
Here are some websites with complete curriculums for free!
I would be careful that these parents aren't expecting you to do too much "teaching" though. Preschool isn't supposed to be about memorizing your abc's and numbers, though that usually happens, it's more about exploring the environment around them and enjoying themselves!

http://www.hummingbirded.com/

http://first-school.ws/

http://123child.com/

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/index.htm

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/activ.html
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MarinaVanessa 12:25 PM 10-05-2010
I did a few things to make my own. I found a website that has pre-planned preschool curriculum for free. It shows you the monthly curriculum and has hand-outs and worksheets to print out. I print out the handouts and put them inside plastic sheet protectors and give them dry-erase markers to work on them with. Some sheets are so easy, like the letter of the day and the kids color it in and cut out things that start with that letter and glue them on, that I don't bother to print them. I bought the brown kinder paper with lines (the kind they practice printing on), draw the letter with a marker and use that instead. Simple but works. The website is http://preschoolpalace.org.

I used to use that exclusively and then started buying books on curriculum. I loved The Complete Daily Curriculum for Early Childhood and The Weekly Curriculum 52 Complete Preschool Themes. I do the same things with those worksheets. When were done with the worksheets, I file them by category.

Since you are just starting out I would plan the curriculum 1 week at a time so that you only have to buy a few things at a time. Eventually you'll have most of the stuff on hand and won't even need to buy anything. Remember that not all of the curriculum is crafts and art. A lot of it is singing, dance, games, movement, etc. We're doing dinosaurs this week and I printed out a sheet with dinos on it, cut them out and glued them onto index cards. Then we played memory, go fish, sang songs about them and learned about the dinosaurs on the cards by looking them up online. All that cost me was the use of a sheet of paper, some ink, and some glue. Tomorrow we're going on a dino dig. I'm burying the dinos in the sand at the park and giving the kids brushes and they're going to excavate. All that cost was the price of some $ store dinos which I already had and some $ store house paint brushes.

Don't be afraid to get creative and remember that even when you buy your curriculum and it comes with supplies, some supples are still required to be purchased on your own.
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melskids 01:13 PM 10-05-2010
www.preschoolbystormie.com is another good one, for free!!!

and i love www.pre-kpages.com she has ALOT of useful info, even though she is in a prek classroom
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