Filling the Spots

Hey, all you other preschool teachers out there!  What do you do to fill your spots?  How do you advertise?  How do you get the word out?

Wondering if I will be able to fill my spots is a little stressful! I am a small in-home preschool and can't afford to spend money on advertising.  Passing out fliers is a hassle and is time consuming!  i even drove around to 8 or 9 elementary schools near my home and put fliers up on their community bulletin boards. 

I've done some research and have found a few great places I can advertise for free online.  This last year I put ads on KSL, Google Places, Merchant Circle, and Craig's List.  I had my brother who was taking a web design class help design a website for my preschool.  Did you know there are several places that you can set up a web page for free?  Yay!  Do you have any other places you use or know of others who use them?  I am always looking for more ideas.

I have just opened enrollment for the 2011-2012 school year and I have up to a total of 44 spots to fill between my 4 possible classes!  I was hoping I would have younger siblings of some of my students this year that would be old enough next year but that hasn't worked out very well.  Half of my students are either only children or are the youngest in their family.  I only have 1 student who has a  younger sibling that may be old enough next year!  It looks like I will be starting from scratch again this coming year. [sigh]

I have created a Facebook page and I'm hoping this will reach more people.  I suggested this page to all my Facebook friends and I'm hoping that their friends will see the link, and then their friends will see it, etc.  Hopefully it works.

I am planning on doing fliers again this year but I am going to start much earlier.  Last year I didn't get started until July or so that was too late!  I am also going to try to put fliers up in more areas.  Those of you that do fliers, do you put them on the houses that say No Soliciting?  I'm a little nervous about doing that even though I'm not knocking on their doors.  Last year I only put them on those houses if I could see that they had young children.  No one called to complain so I'm assuming they weren't upset. 

Someone suggested I put fliers up at various businesses in the my area.  Do any of you do this? What kinds of businesses do you put them in?

Introduction

Hi, everyone! 
My name is Ashley.  Prior to starting my preschool I taught kindergarten for several years.  I wanted to be able to be a stay-at-home mom for my future children and still help out financially.  I had the opportunity to teach in several different preschools while getting my degree and loved it.  I wanted to own a preschool "someday".  This past year I decided that "someday" was now and opened a preschool in my home in Clearfield, UT.  Preschool is going great and my students are wonderful!  I have just opened enrollment for next year and am hoping to fill all my spots. 

I thought it would be great to start a blog and connect with other preschool teachers and share ideas.  If you are a preschool teacher, work with young children, or even if you are a mom of young children I would love to hear your ideas and fun things you do with your children to help them learn and grow.