So, we got our home school year off last week. I have also started to offer piano lessons. My husband made me up a brochure–he’s a designer, and I put them out at different places in our community. The biggest draw though, has been a sign he put on our fence. It simply says, “Piano Lessons” with my number underneath it. I have been giving lessons for about 3 years now. It was something I didn’t ever think I would do, or could, and then a family at church asked me to teach their 3 kids. They had seen me play piano for praise and worship and wanted someone to give their kids lessons. At first, I was hesitant. I gave in after they kept asking and found that I really enjoyed it. Being a licensed teacher, I knew I could teach, but piano? (I was a music major in college for four years, but at the last minute decided on an educational degree.) So this is my first “serious” year. I advertised and now, I have 16 students with 2 more coming to check me out next week. That isn’t including my own two children. I really felt like this was something I could do to make some extra money–since quitting my job to home school, we lost about 30 grand a year. I was delighted to see the open doors for this. Not only did my husband create a beautiful brochure with my policies in it, but we got the brochure printed for free! I have a thousand brochures all for free. Anyway, as soon as I put that sign up, I got phone calls like you wouldn’t believe. So, I am excited that I can not only home school my children, but I can make some money at home doing something I enjoy. Ideally, I would like between 20-25 students, but this will work out fine, if this is what the Lord gives me. I get to make my own hours and it doesn’t interfere with my teaching time. All my lessons are in the later afternoon and two evenings a week. I have two recitals planned and have the calendar all done. We start in September and end in June.
In other news, Alex will be taking his permit test tomorrow. Beth will be going to get her eyes checked so she can get contact lenses. We will be doing school from 8:00-9:45, (bible, math and spelling.) take the car and listen to Spanish on tape while we drive to the two appointments. Then, when we get back, at about 11:15 or 11:30, we will do grammar until lunch. We will have to do geography, music and science after lunch. The rest of the week is school as usual.
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I’m beginning to think about giving piano lessons, but my full-time job takes out all of my daytime. I do a lot of musical theatre work in my little spare time, teaching songs to kids and adults, but I like the idea of teaching in a more formal capacity. What do you think have been the main differences between giving lessons informally as before, and your now more formal “serious year”? Do you only teach children, or adults as well. Do you have a preference? Thanks, Mat
Well, I have to be a lot more organized! I made up policies that I wanted to have in place before I started teaching. For one thing, I wanted to get paid on time and not by each lesson. So I said lessons will be paid for at the beginning of each month. I also wanted to avoid the missed lessons–I had a family last year that would come when they could–and that was a pain. So I made it a policy that they could have one missed lesson a month, and I scheduled make up days in my calendar, so they could make the lesson up. That way, I still get paid for the lessons they miss and they will be less likely to miss a lesson. My schedule is 36 lessons over 10 months for $55.00 a month. I scheduled it according to the public school’s calendar, so they don’t have lessons when there is no school, or spring break.
I teach both children and adults, but prefer children. (I only have a few adults.) I am also a little biased, since I was a second grade teacher before I decided to quit.
A lot of people prefer evening lessons, if you want to do that–It would be a lot of work, and you would have to consider having your home open to everyone during the evening, if you do it out of your home. My evening lessons were the first to be filled. (I only do evenings two nights a week, because I do it out of our home and I don’t want my home space invaded every night of the week! :)
Mat,
One more thing,
If you want to see my brochure, you can go to the blogroll and click on Davidic Design. (It’s my husband’s site and he designed it.) I have all my policies and stuff in there if you are interested. You click on the navigate bar and go to August.
Thanks for the comment!