Can I Start A Preschool In A Small Home?

A preschool in a small home can be cozy, but can it be done? You’d be surprised just how little room you need to teach preschool in a small home… in fact – all you need is a kitchen table & living room floor!

When you think of the time slots that make up your preschool time:

• Circle Time
• Dramatic Play
• Story Time
• Arts & Crafts
• Snack Time
• Recess

And then look around your tiny space, you may be wondering if a home preschool will work for you.

Why Does Square Footage Matter?

For licensing purposes, you need to have at least 35 square feet of space per child in your home preschool. This is a fire code requirement and it is for your safety and the safety of the children in your care.

To figure out how many children you can safely have in your home, measure the length and width of the rooms you will be using for your preschool classes. These would include your living room, kitchen, and any bedroom where you will be doing school activities. (The bathroom may or may not be included in the square footage total depending on the zoning requirements in your area.)

After you get the total square footage of the rooms you measured, divide that number by 35 and that will be the number of children you can have in your home preschool. For example:

Living Room	10 X 10 = 100
Kitchen	8 X 10 =   80
Spare Bedroom	8 X 10 =   80
TOTAL	260 square feet

260/35 = 7.4 or 7 children

Can You Use The Square Footage Of Your Whole House?

You can include the square footage of any room that you will use for your preschool in a small home. It is a good idea to not include your bedroom or your children’s bedrooms in this total. You will already be using a large portion of your home for your home preschool classes; it will be better if you and your children have a place to go to get away from the business side of your home. It is especially important for your children to have their own space that they don’t have to share with the other children.

What If You Don’t Have A Backyard?

You will want to include a recess or gross motor activity time in your preschool, but what if you don’t have a backyard to use? Get creative and build obstacle courses in your living room and hallway, push the furniture against the walls and dance around with scarves, play follow the leader around the kitchen table while imitating various animal movements. Use the space you have in creative ways and you can add these large body movement activities into your days.

Preschool in a small home is doable as long as you are willing to follow a few rules and use a little bit of creativity.