Originally Posted by Starburst:
You don't always have to buy curriculum there are ways to make curriculum yourself.
1) Just pick a subject (a broad subject like the beach or animals- or if it is child led you can have the kids pick a topic every monday) and do a web (or a brainstorm) with the kids about things they know about the subject (beach: sand, water, fish or animals: some walk, some fly, some swim), what they want to know (what can people do at the beach or learn more about different animals) and then try to think of different activities you can do that work out each of the "SPICE" domains (Social, physical, intellegence/cognitive, creative, emotional). This is how most child led (and even some teacher lead) curriculums are made.
2) Some curriculums like coloring pages you can find online or just get from walmart or the $1 store and scan on your computer and print it at home yourself. The only thing you will have to pay more for is the paper and the black ink so you can raise your rate alittle bit for that. Sometimes you can just buy one curriculum and then see if you can copy the rest.
3) you can also look at pintrest for some ideas ('In lue of preschool' has some cool things). I have a board on my account for infant,toddler, preschool, and school age curriculum.
Another thing you can do is charge the parents a yearly registration/enrollment/ materials fee (between $10-$50 per child) around the beginging of the school year so you can buy all the school supplies when they have all the sales.
I plan on doing preschool with my daycare but I plan on just charging the same for every age group depending on their full-time or part time attendance; though if they want to enroll in my preschool program their child will need to attend all 5 days a week for the instructional part {or what I call "the sit down preschool"} and for people who will only attend the sit down lession part of my preschool (1 hour every day 5 days week) they will need to pay the part time rate. I also plan on starting my tution rates low at first and slowly in creasing it every year. and I plan on doing curriculum for all ages so the tuition will cover tution.
Wonderful ideas, thanks!