As a homeschool parent - I need your opinion. In our area homeschooling / distance ed is very popular. Our rec center even has homeschool gym class and art class offered during the day. My idea is to have "Fridays at our house". Like sending your kids off to daycare for a day so you can have a Mom day, but they would come to our house. I would open my home on Fridays, and take one family of kids - offer a craft, snack and games. Mom would pay either a daycare equivalent price per child or a family rate if they have more than 2 children. People would have to book ahead, and I only do Friday. I think it might work as a way to let Mom's book appointments and get shopping done. I do not foresee having one Mom book all my Fridays, but I think I could fill them all with a variety of families. Am I crazy? If this were available in your area would you consider it? What would your hesitation be? What problems do you foresee? Thanks for your help! I would really like to find a way to earn a little bit of extra $$ with out being at a part time job every night, or taking full time daycare.
Another thing might be to offer evening hours for date nights for parents, you could even charge more for that.
I wouldn't use it. But I am sure there are some who would enjoy having a Friday, or part of it, to themselves. Any problems that I could see would be that you are dedicated to this time. So are your children. Unless they are heading out, they will take part with you. It would probably be a good idea to ask them what their hesitations might be. On the outside, having other children over to play sounds fun, but a steady diet of it could become a problem. Do your children have to share their toys? Is this going to be learning time for them, too? A big one is: Is it legal? Around here, babysitting is fine. BUT! Opening my house up as a learning facility would completely mess up my homeschooling status. Plus, I would be required to know CPR, be insured, etc...
If you think of it more as "friends coming over to play" or "babysitting" with some directed activities, and only one family at a time, it probably won't have much regulation if any. Sounds like it could work.
I would charge for a class rate. I guess I don't know what daycare costs anymore. I just think you should make it worth YOUR time.
I'm thinking I won't be able to start anything until my youngest is 18mos. If I start too early, then it will just turn into a paid playdate. But I would like to do theme days. I want to be considered 'babysitting' so that my home insurance won't need to change (my policy covers babysitting, but I was told most other home policies don't allow businesses run out of the home unless you pay more). Our rules for homeschooling here are pretty lax, but its the babysitting that I have to check the rules for. Here, there are limits to how many kids you can take outside your own. I think I am allowed to take a whole family though, regardless of how many kids there are. Reading your comments really makes me think out the idea more though. I would like to do theme days, with a craft some library books on the topic, and special activities. That way my kids will get something out of it too. But maybe 1/2 days would be better. Then I could pick two days a week to offer it, and it wouldn't take away from our schooling in the morning. I could charge a little more because of the special activities too. hmm... pricing is the really tricky thing. It has to be worth my time, but it has to be affordable enough that a homeschool Mom would be willing to use the service. I could also offer it to the wider community on Public School ProD days. That would be interesting, but those parents might be willing to pay more. Most HS parents are from single income families. There is a lot to think about, but I think this could be an option for me.
Last year, I thought about trying a Mom's Morning Out at my house. I never went through with it, because we rent and I wasn't sure of any needed insurance. The idea is a great concept, if you can work out all the details and make it worth your time and money!
