How WE started a home-based preschool co-op

What's a preschool co-op?: When I talk about a preschool co-op, I am generally speaking of a group of people (in my case parents) who take turns teaching preschool (in my case in our homes). We have a group of four SAHM's and a total of 4 boys (3-4 years old) in our preschool co-op. We take turns teaching the boys in our home twice a week (we do Tuesday and Wednesday) from 10-11:30am. We switch weekly, so each mom teaches twice one week and then doesn't teach again until 4 weeks later. It works pretty well for us and the boys enjoy the time together to learn and play.

1. Recruit: If you are thinking about starting a preschool co-op in your area, you first need to find other parents of children about the same age as your child, who are interested in joining. I would recommend between 3-5 kids per co-op and they really should be within about a year of each other in age.

2. Gather Ideas & Meet Together: Once you've found a group of parents who are willing to take turns teaching, you should meet together to discuss the logistics like days, times, how long you want each session to last, etc. as well as the curriculum that you are interested in. You should discuss your children's needs and how you plan to deal with disruptions. I also suggest that you come up with some kind of consistent daily routine that each parent can use to base their planning around. I will share my ideas for each of these things, but you should use the views and ideas of those in your co-op as your guide.

Days, times, & length of each session- Depending on the ages of the children in the co-op, you could do one day a week up to 3 or more if you are all willing. We do twice a week for our 3 and 4 year olds. We hold ours in the mornings, which seems to work best for most children, and we spend only 1 and a half hours for each session. I have heard of some who do even longer. It just depends on what you're doing and what those in your group prefer.

You should also be sure to plan a schedule for who will teach, when, and what their topic will be, as well as any breaks you will take for holidays. Here is a copy of the Fall schedule that I made for our group.

4. Curriculum- Learning should be based on play- the goal of a good preschool should be for the children to have fun and learn things while they're playing. Use songs, games, crafts, activities, or anything else that will be fun for the children when planning lessons.

As far as what topics to teach, I haven't used any formal curriculum, although there are great ones that you can purchase. I've heard good things about FunShine Express from my friend Kristen, although I admit I've never used it myself (If anyone has other suggestions, please let me know). Instead, I use the wealth of ideas that I find on the Internet for planning my lessons. I also use lots ideas of from my friend Becky. She is the one and only original co-op preschool SAHM! Most of the ideas that I will share on this website are based on her ideas. Anyway, here are some of the best websites that I use for getting ideas and then planning lessons:

preschool by stormie (Monthly Units, lots of great ideas, can also purchase resources)
everything preschool (Click the tab on the top left called "Our Themes" to search for tons of ideas by topic)
kidzone (lesson plans, printables, etc. Just start browsing)
DLTK Kids (Tons of printable pages, and links to lessons, another to spend time browsing)
The Friend (This is a gospel/values based magazine for young children put out by the LDS Church- It's a great resource for teaching topics like honesty, friendship, etc.- I usually click on the "search Friend" link on the left and then type in the topic keyword and browse the articles it brings up.)
gigglepotz- I just found this one and have barely browsed it, but it looks helpful!

5. Daily Routine: You'll want to decide what routines you want to do each session, like an opening, circle time, centers, etc. and how they will basically work. You can always change things later, but it's good to have a structure in place that you can plan from. Here's a link to the daily routine we use (of course, this is just an almost exact/ slightly tweaked version of the one Becky created).

6. Dealing with Disruptions & Classroom Management: The best management plan for a classroom is to plan fun, engaging lessons, and to involve the children as much as possible to avoid problems altogether! If you encounter problems, I suggest always being positive.