I'm thinking of starting up Joy School. I did it when I was younger and remember LOVING it. I'm sure I would've liked just a regular homemade co-op style of preschool too, but I really loved Joy School. I did a little preschool in Houston with some friends that I really enjoyed and Hazel loved it too, I think it was the perfect thing for her then. Now as I'm thinking of starting up another mom-run preschool, I've been looking into Joy School again.
What I like about Joy School is:
-It's totally organized, ie., you get a detailed lesson plan for each day. The free sample one is actually 28 pages. It even gives you ideas for certain comments to share with the kids.
-They send you music CD's and all the craft pages are online.
-It's been tested forEVER it seems. They say over 100,000 families have used it so far. Basically, they know what works.
-I love that they focus on joy. It's such a postive method of teaching and it's not just letters and numbers, it's a lot of general ideas kids need to learn about life and fun, effective ways to learn about them.
My reservations about Joy School:
-Cost. You pay $50 for an upfront membership fee to valuesparenting.com for all their great tips...which I probably would never get my money out of since the likelihood of me reading it is just slim. Then you pay $70 per semester (there are two semesters, two years). Really, that's a lot cheaper than if I were to enroll her somewhere, but still, it's a lot more than free if I were to set it up myself. Oh, and each person is supposed to pay that, it's illegal if you don't...but tempting.
-The lesson plans are so thorough, I know I'll have to plan a lot more than I'm probably interested in. Even if they plan it, I'll just have to be on top of things a lot more.
-Finding interested moms that will also pay this fee. If I could get others on board, I would do this, but it's a hard sell if you haven't done it yourself I think.
Questions I have for you:
1. Did you do Joyschool?
2. Would you pay the fees and do it if you have a 3-5 yr old?
3. Have you done your own co-op mom-run preschool? If so, did you use any particular method or manual?
8 comments:
We did Joyschool with Abigail for a year, and I'm going to start with Juliet in January. Yes, we paid the fees upfront. What I did was download all the lesson plans then, so I had them on my computer, and I'm planning to just reuse them the next time I teach Joyschool rather than buying the next semester. We also only did it one day a week rather than 2, so a semester's worth of lessons lasted us for the entire year. I really liked the program and I'm excited to do it again, especially now that the investment bit is already done!
1. No, but it sounds neat.
2. No
3. No, but having mom-run group that does learning activities sounds fun :-) , as long as I were there with my child. Kindergarten seems like it will come soon enough and I want to spend as much time with my little one as I can. I know I will never have this much time with her again (at least here). I can't imagine the time that is on the horizon when I will only see her one-two times per year like my mom and I do. That said, I do only have one child so far. I know things are different with multiple children and with older children. I could see a co-op preschool that was only a few hours per week being considerable.
1. No.
2. No.
3. Celia does a co-op right now with a few other kids her age and we just print off pages online. There is SO much free stuff online - worksheets, tracing, activities, ideas for crafts - I always find way too much stuff and have to slim the lesson plans down! We just focus on a different letter & number each day. The kids love it!
I guess it just depends on your kid and what you think is best for them. Joyschool sounds fun! You might want to check with local high schools, see if they have a preschool run by a child development class. They do that here and the waiting list is VERY long! Celia hasn't gotten in yet. It's only $25/semester, two or three times a week. Other moms have raved about it!
I wish we lived closer! So close yet WAAAAY too far. I wish a group of moms around here would want to do a joyschool program. I love the idea of having it all put together for you, and I liked the idea of using one lesson a week (you could split the lessons in two if there is so much material, or find crafts and ideas online) and the money goes twice as far. I think it sounds great!
We are doing a co-op school for Lydia, which I had sincere reservations about, but still felt like it would be good for her. I didn't really want to do just a number and letter (since we had already done that at home) and I kind of wanted to do a mom/daughter type thing like Amanda above was talking about. BUT, it is turning out fine (I haven't taught yet, so we'll see how that goes!), Lydia loves it, and I love the focus on play rather than drilling, so it's been good.
Afton...I am doing a similar concept called Busy Bee with Abrielle this year and did one year with Carsten. It's the same idea--values based preschool lessons where you buy the plans. The lesson outlines are really thorough and it is a whole lot cheaper, so it's easier to get others involved....I think it was on $72 for the year and another $5 for the music CD. The website is
www.busybeepreschool.com
1. Nope
2. Yes
3. I haven't - Laura is too young right now, but I've been thinking about this and I'm very interested in doing it in a year or so.
Thanks for the post!
I'm sure you could find some moms interested, even if they're in neighboring wards you're that you don't know. It is kinda pricey...but probably worth it. When I get my password, I'll send it to you so you can see if you like it.
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