My dream preschool

It has been a dream of mine to have my own preschool. Thankfully to very fortunate events I am a few steps away! My family and I have put our hard work and money into renovating a preschool room in our home.

I have always enjoyed the preschool age and love watching children discover and learn something new. I've always wanted to have my own preschool to teach in a natural setting without the full pressures of the school system. This is why I love play based learning and the Reggio Emilia approach. I have six plus years experience of working with children of all ages, but the last six years working with preschoolers has been where my heart is.

My mother and I decided to go full force into starting up a preschool in our home. Even though we are using the family child care structure, we will be using preschool curriculum and documentation as a preschool would.

I decided to leave my last preschool job to really start focusing on building up my preschool. During that time my grandmother also passed making it an emotional and financial hard time. It has been four months of using my savings to fix, add, and renovate.

I have not thought about asking for help in our renovations until now. With a few heavy jobs left around the preschool, I thought to give it a try to fundraise with future preschool students and families in mind.

Here are some of the things I would love have done before children enter our preschool;

Thankful for my talented uncle, he installed beautiful windows before heading back home to Oregon. I would love to have the stucco on the outside of the room to be mended and fixed.

My family gave me that idea of installing an awning above the door so when it rains the children and families are not soaking wet in front of the door.

Wood chips in the backyard because grass is probably out of the question (California drought).

I would love for children to have a sand box to explore in. My idea is to renovate an old wooden boat or canoe and turn it into a sandbox. What child wouldn't love that?!

Something to display books on in my book corner. As well as hanging up nice curtains or shades.

I have 2 child size chairs that I was lucky to find at the Salvation Army. However I hope to have more than two children so some more seating would be nice.

Nap mats.

MATERIALS! Over the years of my preschool teaching I have saved and collected items that I know are useful in a preschool curriculum. However with the changing seasons and expanding of children's creativity and education new exciting materials are a must.

These are a few of the major things I would like to have finished before accepting children.

Thank you for reading about my fundraiser, I hope to use this for the better good of the children that come into our preschool.

Alicia