Do you know the local Montessori are charging nearly NINE QUID for a session of heuristic play?

[FrancestheFlyingWindUpQueen]

I was worried about the competition when they started up but now I am just PMSL

they are charging £90 for a term of 11 or 12 sessions, each session lasts 50 mins

however they do have aromatherapy oils and classical music playing during their sessions, which I don't have, which is obviously worth the extra £60 or whatever they are charging

Franny - I wanted to introduce some sort of heuristic play into our local toddler group sessions but would it work in a village hall with parents and children of all pre-school ages already well ensconced with the usual toys and coffe and mags etc?

Oh - and I don't really have much of an idea what I'm doing either which doesn't help. Have done a treasure basket though...

frank i do think you should charge more

cos you are fab

and then you could buy more books and tell us about them

LOL thank you Filly

EmmyLou have you got my document about how to do heuristic play? It might help a bit.

In a village hall it would depend what ages you are aiming the heuristic play session at, and whether you can cordon a separate area off. It needs to be done with fairly well defined age group, and well supervised by the adults - letting the children just roam around with the materials while the adults chat would not be advisable.

If you have a smaller room you can use, or part of the hall you could section off (can be done with chairs?) to prevent older children coming in, I would try a small session with children under 1 who are not walking. You would have to brief all the parents first IME as they can be quite twitchy about the materials, also they need to supervise the children closely.

I think £9 is perfectly reasonable as long as there is a signed and written guarantee that they will be more intelligent and well-adjusted as adults

Personally I would only be willing to fork out £9 if they were performing some kind of brain surgery

anyone attending my classes will of course be instantly endowed with a higher IQ, will score better on their SATs and be more attractive to the opposite sex

In the next village along from me they have recently split their babies and toddlers group into two sessions. The under ones have a one hour sessions 9.30-10.30 for heuristic play, tea and coffee for mums (£2.75) and then a 2 hour toddler session for 1-2.5 on a diff morning. Mums have to stay, babies are welcome (but no toddlers at the babies one). Then they follow on to the playgroup etc when they get to nearly 3.

Personally, I reckon £3.50 is much better value than £9 (obviously doh!) but more than that - it would mean the difference bt. going and not affording to go for me. Franny, sounds like you have priced yourself perfectly. I know others say yu could afford to hike prices, and I bet it is worth it in terms of what you offer (sounds lovely) but I know that round here not many people would pay that much more. We did a missive survey with our prices and comparison with other groups and numbers were highest in groups that charged bt. £2.50-£3.50, tailed off in numbers for groups more than that - unless they offered somthing substabtially more such as the local sports centre gym tots with qualified instruction, trampolines, badges to work for (fgs - they are only 2!!).
Wish you worked near me - I would love to work for you in a heuristic play session (I am an ex teacher indulging my love of little people by working part time for peanuts in local village plygrp atm!)

Lemon Tart why not start your own? If you live in a different village, or could travel, I think you would find the current group could handle the competition. There is an incredible demand for this sort of stuff and the start up costs are not huge.

If you wouldn't mind CATting me with more details I would be very interested to hear what part of the country you are in. People are often contacting me to ask if I know about groups in their area, and besides, I am nosy to see where the idea is spreading to. Don't worry if you would rather not, though.

Franny - how do I get your document on heuristic play?

Do you know of anyone in Yorkshire that our group could pay to come in and perhaps run the odd one-off session for us so that the mums (& me) get the idea? We occaionally pay for one off sessions for people like Jo Jingles (extremely jolly cringe emoticon) to come in, using funds we've raised but I think that someone knowledgable to introduce mums to the idea of heuristic play would be hugely beneficial.

My mum is into all this so i guess I should ask her too but she's in Scotland.

very short session....

My 3.5 year old goes ...costly but dreamy and worth every penny!!!!

Emmy, just CAT me or email me on frannyandzooey at india dot com and I will email it to you - that goes for any lurkers out there as well so don't be scared (I always get a couple of shy little emails after putting this on the boards, saying "ooh I wonder if you wouldn't mind if I could possibly have it too?")

NAO, that is good to hear from a parent who is happy to pay for something they think is good - but are you talking about a Montessori nursery session? This is a session where parents stay with the children and watch them play. 50 minutes is ample for a treasure basket session IMO - it is actually quite mentally tiring for the babies and I can't see any advantages to having a longer session, but maybe you meant a nursery session, for older children.

Oh and I don't know anyone in Yorkshire, no.

I have just asked dp if we could stop on the way back from his parents house, in January, to do a session for you, and he has given me a very hard stare and said "Fool lady"

He also said "Whereabouts in Yorkshire?"

I don't know why. Is it quite a big place or something?

I will email you if you don't mind Franny. Not ashamed

Quite right. Be wnaky and be proud

aromatherapy oils
fgs par parpar

why do you need to GO somwhre to do it?

Because most people don't have, say, 750 items made from different materials and textures, all suitable for babies to explore, lying around at home. We have had this conversation before, cod. It's like "why do you have to go to a music group with your baby when you could just sing to them at home?" Well, you don't, and you could. But lots of people like the social aspect of it and the way it gives them 50 mins or whatever to just focus on being with their babies.

I suppose you probably dont cod , but its quite a nice thing to do at a grp. Makes it quite focused rather than a rampage in a large room with no focus.

Very good website to create one at home fran.

I think £9 is ridic if parents are going too,I think I did fizzee fun with dd1 in a HUge gym with soft climbing things and it worked out about £2.50 I think for an hour or so. No tea no bics !!!!

Your £3.50 sounds good if tea and bics included too.

Franny - we are couple of miles from the A1 near Wetherby....if you're passing...

Realise possibly unrealistic (fuming dh waiting with engine running somehow doesn't quite fit into the picture) but just for your info, we are open on Tuesdays from 9.30am till 1pm.

Thanks - Will email once outgoing email running again - having email nightmare atm.

Emmy, I would like to do it but I think we would be coming back on the Monday, unfortunately. I will let you know if anything changes, or if I hear of anyone in your area who has some knowledge. I reckon you could do it yourself if you read up on it, though - my handout would help and has some suggestions for further reading.

frank

I like the idea of all of this but

what do you do about older sibkings?

Do you banish them?

(OMG "sibKINGS" - what a typo )

I do

you must take turns with other HE families to look after one another's children, it will be a good educational experience for them

seriously I think bark sucking is mostly a PFB activity

Actually, what I do for second born children is let them come for free to my toddler class, which is much more fun really

they get to watch all the singing and dancing, I always have a treasure basket out for them and I don't charge until they start walking

9 quid - blimey. Its 50p at our childrens centre (thank you surestart). and 1 quid for older sibs (still under 5) to be looked after in play room.

Some people will pay silly money tho.. esp if they don;t knwo about a differnt sesion that is cheaper.
DS does play with tresure basket type tat at home, but I still like going to the group and seeeing a group of babes of similar age interacting. Also ids differnt tat to our tat , and I don't have a fun fur or a velvet rug or a wicker basket and hes enjoyed exploring those too.

franny you are clearly a star

many classes do not offer such delights for older/younger ones

which means second children get to do bugger all really. No spoon waving to the grand olf duke of york for them, oh no.

what is PBF?

oh ps my kids don't react well to aromatherapy oils and I dont react well to muzak so your class sounds lots lots better