Has Anyone Switched From FT Daycare To Running Preschool Only?

[crazydaycarelady]

I have always thought about doing this and I just found out that the lady in my neighborhood who currently does it is closing at the end of this year. I have talked to her and she says there is a market for preschool. She would give me her curriculum and would sell me her stuff too.

I would only be making half as much but I would only be working half as much too. Morning and afternoon class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays, follow school calendar, no summers.

I would most likely redo my daycare room over the next months and start next fall. She already has 8-9 kids for next year and I have at least a couple from my daycare that would come, that is with no advertising.

No meals.
No diapers.
No naps.
No babies.
No pak-n-plays set up all over the place.

I think I could make this work. I was planning on retiring in a couple of years from daycare and doing something else and this sounds perfect!

[snbauser]

I have thought about doing it for a long time but it is very difficult around here for an inhome to do a part day preschool only program. There are way too many centers that do that.

[butterfly]

I have always thought about doing this and I just found out that the lady in my neighborhood who currently does it is closing at the end of this year. I have talked to her and she says there is a market for preschool. She would give me her curriculum and would sell me her stuff too.

I would only be making half as much but I would only be working half as much too. Morning and afternoon class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays, follow school calendar, no summers.

I would most likely redo my daycare room over the next months and start next fall. She already has 8-9 kids for next year and I have at least a couple from my daycare that would come, that is with no advertising.

No meals.
No diapers.
No naps.
No babies.
No pak-n-plays set up all over the place.

I think I could make this work. I was planning on retiring in a couple of years from daycare and doing something else and this sounds perfect!

That's AMAZING!!! - DO IT!! - especially if you can get her clients for next year! That sounds like a great transition out of daycare. I would LOVE to do that. The best part of my day is when we are doing our preschool curriculum.

[AcornMama]

This is exactly what I wanted to do, but couldn't find a way to make it work. The biggest reason is I live in a small, rural town, and I just don't don't think the preschool only market is big enough to make what I could doing full-time daycare for fewer kids.

Also, I never could find a liability insurance for a home preschool. Everything I could find for home-based programs was only for licensed homes.

If I lived in a state that allowed licensed providers to have more kids in care than mine does, then maybe I could. For me, I'd have to do it unlicensed, with more kids for fewer hours, doing a morning and afternoon group, but couldn't find an insurance product for that. And then my other reason, not a big enough population to support that.

If you can make it work, I think it sounds like a great idea!

[LK5kids]

I would LOVE to do this! There is zero need in my area! Small town, 6,500. We have all day free 4K, a new pilot program for 3's in the school-also free (not yet available to all 3's) and three 1/2 day programs, partial week for 2's & 3's. Two are housed in churches and one in a commercial building. We also have three group centers that do this as part of the child care day.

I would do this in a heartbeat! Good luck in whatever you decide!

[Stepping]

I have always thought about doing this and I just found out that the lady in my neighborhood who currently does it is closing at the end of this year. I have talked to her and she says there is a market for preschool. She would give me her curriculum and would sell me her stuff too.

I would only be making half as much but I would only be working half as much too. Morning and afternoon class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays, follow school calendar, no summers.

I would most likely redo my daycare room over the next months and start next fall. She already has 8-9 kids for next year and I have at least a couple from my daycare that would come, that is with no advertising.

No meals.
No diapers.
No naps.
No babies.
No pak-n-plays set up all over the place.

I think I could make this work. I was planning on retiring in a couple of years from daycare and doing something else and this sounds perfect!

I would love to switch to preschool only and wish I had set up this way from the start. I'm thinking of advertising my next vacancies as preschool only and try to slowly transition from on to the other.

The preschool closing in your area sounds like a perfect opportunity. I say go for it!

[Meeko]

I would love to do just this. Unfortunately there is one HUGE difference in pre-school and daycare.

Daycare is a NEED. (And yet it can still be hard to fill spots).

Private pre-school is a WANT/LUXURY. If the budget gets tight....pre-school will be the first thing parents will cross off the list.

If we had another, good and steady income coming in, I would do pre-school only. That way, if times got rough and they all quit, I would only be losing my "extra" money.

But this is how we make a living for our whole family and we need to tap into NEED.

If you are going to be OK financially, I say go for it!

[preschoolteacher]

This is what I started off wanting to do. It is not going to work for me, either. Right now, I have a group of kids who are all 1 and 2 years old. Four of the kids are actually within 6 weeks of each other in age. Everyone would be in the same grade in school once they get to K (cool, huh!) I hope they all stay with me so that in a year or two I can do my own mini-preschool with them. But I market myself as a "daycare and preschool" and offer full-day care for kids 1-5.

I think it would be very, very hard to be credible as a preschool. Parents think SCHOOL when they think preschool. Not home. Personally, I think the idea of a home preschool is excellent... small class size... cozy environment... child-centered... no stress, drama, chaos, and craziness of a class of 20 three-year-olds. But parents (most of them) want their kids to get ready for K... and by that, they think classroom. A "real" school.

Unless of course they need daycare, too. Then a full day program with a preschool component is what they want. That's what I do.

To make things worse (for me!), I live two blocks from an elementary school that has a public park program on the premises as well as an Early Child Family Ed program in the school. The elementary school offers free preschool for 4-year-olds. The Early Child program offers really, really cheap "preschool" 2 days a week for kids 2 and 3. And the park offers some 6-week programs on a rotating basis for 3-and-4 year-olds based on topics like fall leaves, music, and so on. Not to mention that the park offers drop in Lunch Bunch for 3 and 4 year olds on Friday afternoons so stay-at-home parents can run errands. All of these programs are very, very inexpensive.

I don't have a chance of making it as a preschool!

[AcornMama]

But I market myself as a "daycare and preschool" and offer full-day care for kids 1-5.

This is what I'm doing as well (but not for one year olds).

And I agree, parents seem to think that preschool has to mean "school building." I basically offer a morning preschool with a full day of care. I have a 3yo dcg 2 days/week. One of the reasons they enrolled her with me is that they want her to experience learning and playing with other kids before she goes to preschool. So, instead of preschool being preparation for school, it's now home preschool is preparation for real preschool. I'm hoping they'll be so pleased with my preschool program that they'll enroll with me next year instead of going to preschool somewhere else.

Of course, as a homeschooler, I don't personally believe that all children have to have a preschool experience, or any "school" experience for that matter. But I'm marketing preschool with daycare because I think parents like the learning aspect, and because I like the preschool age (as opposed to infants and toddlers).

[crazydaycarelady]

The lady the currently does it is in-home. It is in a separate area of her home set up as a classroom, which is what I would have also.

She said their is demand for it because some people just want preschool with no daycare, (like SAHMs.)

[childcaremom]

I would love to be able to do this and am thinking of switching for next September. I don't know if there is a 'need' here but will advertise and see where it goes.

I love teaching. Naptimes and diapers I could do without

Good luck to you!

[kendallina]

I do this, but it's how I started and have never offered full time.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Obviously, the schedule is awesome. Many of my parents are stay at home and the first year that I did this, I did not offer any after-preschool hours for those working families. Now I offer all day on T/TH for my two working families in that group. In the MWF class, I have a few that pick up their kids at noon and then have to take them to a child care provider for the rest of the day. But, they do it because I offer a good preschool.

It's also so important for me to have that 'off work' time. I have a now 4-year old at home, it's her last year with me before kinder and we try to make the most of our time together (and sometimes, that just means hanging around all afternoon after the kids go home).

It's still a lot of work (for me, at least). I plan my own curriculum and obviously, there is still a lot of cleaning and everything, but I can do all of that on my own time whenever I want.

In our area we have a need for this. We have a lot of SAHMs and are in a college town, so a lot of flexible workers where they can come and pick up mid-day.

If you think you'll get families, and it sounds like you will, do it! It's so much fun and sooo nice when they go home at noon...haha.