We recently connected with Janet Meyer Founder and Author and have shared our conversation below.

Janet Meyer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission at Golden Days at Home is to support parents of preschoolers in making the most of these precious, foundational years of early childhood by developing connection.

Humans are built to need connection with others. Adults and children alike thrive in safe, close relationships allowing them to feel calm and accepted. Children are not only greatly influenced by their parents but the connection between parent and child is crucial for their healthy development. Without this bond, children often experience problems with behavior and have difficulties dealing with emotions and new situations. The effects of which can carry on through childhood into their adult life. A happy, contented child is the result of a healthy parent/child relationship. Nurturing this bond is at the heart of our company.

We are eager to assist parents in their desire to develop a relationship with their young child as they provide and protect a nurturing home environment. We work to enlighten and encourage parents in their influential and honorable role as their child’s greatest teacher by providing a confident resource to spend deliberate time together teaching, creating, reading and enjoying shared experiences to influence a lifetime.

Janet Meyer, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As author and creator of the Golden Days at Home Preschool Curriculum, I made a personal dream come true. I have always loved children and as the oldest of six, helped my mom raise my younger sister and brothers. My father left our family when I was fourteen and my youngest brother was six weeks old so the opportunity to step up, learn and love presented itself. When I began university, I knew I wanted to pursue a career helping children. I successfully graduated with a BSc double major in elementary education and special education.

The life experiences of focusing on the well-being of my young siblings, working with children during my studies and finally raising five children of my own, gifted me the knowledge that the foundational early years of childhood shape the rest of our lives. These precious, golden years are positively or negatively affected by a child’s experience at home. The fleeting years of early childhood are positively influenced when parents create a safe, loving, nurturing environment and are committed to connecting with their child. The Golden Days at Home preschool lesson plans were developed to support parents in their influential and honorable role.

The opportunities for a parent and child to connect following the Golden Days at Home lesson plan format are bounteous. Sharing interests such as games, activities and crafts create occasions for connection. Sitting together with snacks and conversation, science and experiments, nature walks, singing and playing on the floor at a child’s level offer more opportunities. Story time is also a powerful way for parent and child to connect. Each of the Golden Days at Home weekly preschool lesson plans was inspired by an award-winning picture book. The book is read together before the day’s learning time and many of the week’s lessons and activities refer back to the book’s illustrations and text. Through the Golden Days at Home teaching resource, parent and child share consistent story time, play time, learning time and activities richly tending their relationship and creating a nurturing atmosphere at home.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My business journey began when my husband and I bought a cottage on a couple of acres to open a preschool in our town. I was excited to teach again. Our youngest child, we have five, had just started kindergarten and I was ready to begin a new adventure. I was anxious to get going and began the lengthy process of working with the city for permits, licensing, etc. A year and a half into the process, the city informed me they had instituted a moratorium on all educational businesses in the area where our cottage was situated, effective immediately. My heart sank. I would not be able to open a preschool there anytime in the foreseeable future. After the shock, it took me quite a while to digest the realities of the situation, put aside my dream and begin making new decisions. But, eventually I did.

My husband and I decided to rent out our cottage and property. I changed gears and with a new goal, began creating the beautiful vision I had of my preschool, including its nurturing philosophy and gentle learning environment, into lesson plans for parents to teach their little ones at home. I had always wanted this type of educational resource when I was raising my children and was propelled to create what I had been looking for to support parents today. Motivated by my love for children, belief in the power of books, experience as a mother and educator, I set out to create a reliable teaching resource to support parents of young children who desire to make the most of this precious, fleeting and foundational time. The idea for The Golden Days at Home Preschool Curriculum was born.

I spent the next 15 years writing and creating the 48 full week lesson plans each inspired by a Caldecott Award-winning picture book. Every lesson plan is made up of 17 subject areas including Science, Geography, Music & Rhyme, Pre-math, The World Around Us, Arts & Crafts and many more. There are recipes for Nursery Tea, visuals and *A Little Bit of Magic included each week, as well. It turned out to be an absolute pleasure and joy for me to create the Golden Days at Home preschool lesson plans. I grew and learned in unexpected ways. When the curriculum was finally complete, I worked with a web designer to build our website and made the the full year of lesson plans available for parents and caregivers to teach little ones in their charge.

Although the path dramatically changed from where I was first headed, my desire to support families of preschoolers to make the most of these precious, golden days together came to fruition. I am proud to have listened to my heart letting it guide me along this heartfelt and honorable journey.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

I do have my products listed for sale on supplementary revenue streams. All of the Golden Days at Home full week preschool lesson plans are available for download from my website, www.goldendaysathome.com. They are available for purchase in monthly bundles of 4 full week lesson plans, seasonal bundles of 12 full week lesson plans or the full year bundle of 48 weekly lesson plans.

I have also created a shop on ETSY where all of the 48 lesson plans are available for individual purchase. I have had quite a few individual lesson plan sales as well as multiple lesson plan sales from this site. I chose to sell from ETSY because my target customer shops from this website.

My next venture is to open a shop on the TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers) website. It is a valuable location for parents and teachers to shop for print and digital teaching resources. The Golden Days at Home Curriculum is a versatile resource for teaching both at home and in the preschool classroom. I am excited to get involved with this global community of educators and offer Golden Days at Home Preschool Curriculum to a wider audience.   

Contact Info:

• Website: www.goldendaysathome.com
• Instagram: @goldendaysathome
• Facebook: Golden Days at Home
• Other: ETSY – GoldenDaysatHome