There is a lady in my community called “The Coupon Consultant” who regularly hosts coupon-ing workshops at local libraries, churches, etc. She teaches you how to get the most bang for your buck at the grocery store. I have not personally attended (but dear friends of mine have) but I understand the basic premise about combining coupons with sale items, taking advantage of rebates, double coupons, etc. I was practicing this type of shopping for a while but I stopped because I wanted to streamline the chemical and preservative type foods that I brought into the house (free “junk food” is still junk food!) and 2, because now I spend all my time teaching my kids, preparing materials, researching early learning online,etc. Anyway, I digress.
So I started thinking, what if I started hosting early learning workshops just like this lady hosts coupon-ing workshops? She used to charge $40 per person but brought her fee down to $20. I am thinking $25-30 per person would be a fair price to attend an Early Learning Workshop. I think it would be difficult to get my name out there, but maybe once I got started business might pick up by word of mouth. The start up costs would be relatively low, except for advertising should I chose to do any that costs. Really, all I can think of is printing costs for informational packets/handbooks. I was thinking about holding it at the library and doing a power point presentation with video examples.
I was formerly in the travel business before I had children. Among other career paths I have taken, I was previously a successful travel professional working for a large company, I just didn’t make it on my own. I started up my own business but had a difficult time getting clients and had two babies within two years, I have no quiet place to sit on the phone, make calls, etc, plus the economy has just started going south, so I closed down my business and took a loss. That experience has made me leery of starting a new venture but I think this would be something I would really enjoy.
However, if I decided to go ahead and give this a whirl, I could try and host one workshop once a month or every few months, depending on however many people were interested.
So, my question to you is, what information would you include in an Early Learning Workshop?
Offhand, I think I would highlight:
-Basic Doman history, methods, philosophy (breakdown physical, math, and reading)
-Early Learning Pro/Con (to address both sides of the coin and possible questions/objections)
-Provide a list of resources including books, websites, software/DVD resources, including LR/LM demonstration (including some FREE resources)
-Shows some awesome clips of BK kids reading in the intro, including my own sweet DD of course
-Helpful How To’s to create materials at home
-Tips to be successful in integrating early learning into your current lifestyle (building routines, opportunities to create teachable moments, audio learning in the car, bringing along flashcards in the diaper bag while you are waiting in line somewhere, etc, etc)
- Various methods of delivery and what/where to purchase locally to contribute to early learning success (tv/ computer vs. old fashioned flashcards, free powerpoint for EK, where to buy reusable dry erase flashcards, where the teacher stores are and helpful items you can purchase there, where to find the best laminate at walmart, etc)
-The best local early learning classes (music, language, EK, etc)
-Touch on Montessori philosophies because I am a big fan of that too, I prefer to blend Doman/Montessori as much as I can
-Baby Signing
-Avoiding pseudo-educational products
There is a lot of material purchase involved for me personally when teaching my kids, but there are ways to minimize that (like reusable flashcards, etc) so I want to share that too. I don’t want to the whole thing to become a sales pitch. There are just so many great products out there worth sharing.
This was really off the top of my head, so excuse my brain dump. I was just looking for some feedback on this idea- what do you think?