Kids Fun Money

Kids + Fun = Money!

During school vacations, most parents are at a loss for what to do with their kids. They seek out day camps, lessons and workshops; anywhere they can take their kids to get the kids out of their hair for a few minutes!

If you enjoy kids and love crafts, you are in the perfect position to offer relief to these parents. It's also great if you have kids of your own. You can enlist them to help you out.

By offering craft classes during school vacations, you can have a blast while earning. It is a great way to combine your two interests.

Begin by choosing an age range and hours. This is strictly dependent on your preference. If you prefer to work with pre-teens, you should set the age range at 9-12. For the younger kids, 6-9 is a good range. It is usually wise to keep the ages fairly similar to avoid problems.

As for hours, this also depends on you. If you have another job, set the hours around this. Generally, for younger kids, 1 hour is sufficient, but you can have longer hours with older ones, up to 2 hours. Keep in mind that more complicated crafts can be done over a few classes, no need to rush and frustrate your young students.

How often during the week is another choice to make. You may offer one hour a day, or one class a week. If you like working with different ages, or if your class is full, you may offer more than one class per week. For example, 9-12 year olds on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 6-9 year olds on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

You will want to have affordable prices, and perhaps a sibling discount. Include the cost of supplies, plus time. You will need to set a minimum number of students to be sure that you make a decent amount of money. Depending on the craft, this could be as low as three students. Also, set a maximum. More than about 10 students is difficult to work with and they will tend to get bored waiting for your help. Not to mention, ten hyper youngsters is more than enough for anyone. You can set prices by class or by week or month, depending on your schedule.

Crafts should be age-appropriate. Don't start four year olds making clay pots on a throwing wheel. Simpler things like felt ornaments would be suitable for this age. For ideas on craft projects, check out www.dltk-kids.com which has some fun, easy crafts and printable templates. www.enchantedlearning.com is another great website for crafts. They have a good listing of holiday crafts in addition to others. You can also find craft books in the library.

Decide what crafts you will be doing ahead of time and make up a schedule for one month. Run it in the local paper and post in schools and day care centers. Have the price, contact number and location clearly marked.

It is a good plan to have parents pre-book their children so you know ahead of time how many students to expect. This allows you to add another class to your schedule if there are too many students. It also allows you to buy sufficient supplies.

Once you have your schedule and supplies, you're ready for the students! If a few hours a week during vacations doesn't do it for you, consider offering your services after school during the school year, to expand your business into a year round one!

Here are some additional links to craft sites:

http://www.orientaltrading.com -- they sell a ton of pre-fab, pre-packaged kits. You don't have to do the labor of cutting multiple pieces of anything or counting. Important note though, it is best to order extra as their kits are sometimes short 1 or 2 pieces or there is a piece that is not useable.

http://www.makingfriends.com
-- Many craft directions online and kits and accessories for all different groups and things that could be adapted for any group.