Calling Nazareth Area Moms of Preschoolers!

Hey there Moms!

If you are a stay-at-home mom (or even a work-part-time mom -- like me) of a preschool-age child, you have probably started looking into your preschool options and have found that preschool is quite expensive. I know because I am in the same boat. Quite frankly, our budget is too tight to do it ALL, even though that is EXACTLY what we want. My husband and I really want our sons to participate in activities such as a Little Gym type class AND a fun little preschool each week, but we just cannot afford to do both. So in order to help our budget and get our boys the preschool education and socialization we would like them to have, I'm proposing a preschool co-op in the Nazareth area.

For those who are not familiar with a preschool co-op program, it's where the moms teach a class each week. How it would work is:

* Each mom would be responsible for handling one week
* Each week will include two classes at two hours each

We will divide up the teaching responsibilities, so that every week a different mom would teach the two lessons of the week at their house. What it boils down to is that every few weeks you would teach Monday and Wednesday for two hours.

Whoever is teaching is responsible for a craft, snack, lesson and game. Our main goal would be to teach the alphabet and our numbers up to 20. We would do this by introducing a letter and number for that particular week, as well as some regular activities.

This is what a proposed schedule looks like:

1. Pledge of Allegiance
2. Calendar Time
3. Months of the Year Song (with school calendar)
4. Alphabet Song (with alphabet poster)
5. Weather
6. A couple of silly songs
7. Your own personalized lesson relating to number and letter of the week

We would each carefully plan out a lesson which involves: crafts, games, snacks, tracing letters, counting, sounding out the letters and reading books. It can be a lot of fun and a great experience for mommy and preschooler.

Here are some of the benefits of a co-op preschool:

1. Your child gets to benefit from a few different teachers with different teaching techniques. He/She has also learned to listen to other adults and show respect.

2. With some time away from mom built into the schedule, it's like free babysitting -- even though you're doing your part! And your child will adjust to spending some time away from you.

3. Your child is getting social time, and he/she's learning to interact with other children. They will learn to share better and take turns.

4. You are actively involved in your child's learning. You have a say in what he/she is discovering and know exactly what the other parents have taught.

5. You know that your child is in a safe and loving environment.

6. You will hopefully make new friends for both you and your child!

I am hoping that we could start getting together over the summer, so we can get to know the families that plan to join the co-op. We'll do some fun activities, like visit the Lehigh Valley Zoo, meet at a local park, BBQ at home, etc., just to get to know one another and hopefully feel comfortable with each other.

Then when September rolls around we would start school and run it on the regular school schedule with breaks around the holidays, etc. I figure in the beginning we wouldn't have to leave the kids at the "schools," we could each sit in on one or two classes until we felt comfortable. 

Are you interested in saving LOTS of money? Are you excited to teach your child and have other parents teach him or her? How about some time off with free but earned babysitting? I hope I've piqued your interest and you would like to try this new endeavour with me!

If so, please send me an e-mail at jaimhg@gmail.com and we can start planning for this summer and the 2012-2013 school year! My hope is to build a nice group who also has younger children. I have a 2-year-old son, and I would like to continue this with him as well.

And comment! Let's make the 2012-2013 school year a success!