The Adventures of Baby Arthur

Our search for a pre-school continued after visits to Love-a-Lot and Chinatown Day Care. The next stop was Your Kids Our Kids Day Care / Pre-school . This experience was quite a departure from the Stinkin Chinatown Day Care. Showing up to the facility for a scheduled tour date, Liz walked into a waiting area that was separated from the child care area by a secure door. Unlike Stinkin Chinatown Day Care, there was a receptionist to greet her! They even had juice and cookies available for the visitors.. How nice of them to pump Arthur up with sugar before the tour!

Walking into the facility from the waiting area, the room opened up into a larger area that was sectioned off by partial height walls, so anyone could see what was going on in any section. Liz called them "a maze of bullpens." While it was good to see that staff members could keep an eye on all of the children from anywhere, the environment felt a bit loud and chaotic. There did not seem to be an effective classroom environment that would be conducive for learning with all the noise. Any screaming child in any section would be heard by all. In addition, the facility was a bit dirty, messy and disorganized.

The positives were that they have musical specialists work with the children once per week at each level. The directors and the staff seemed genuine as caregivers and looked like they knew what they were doing. The lead director herself gave the tour and was very warm, friendly and good with kids. The staff ratio was about 4:1 children to teachers (Stinking Chinatown Day Care was more like 6:1, Love-a-Lot was 3:1).

After the tour was over, there was a brief Q&A session with the tour group. Unfortunately, there was not any personal attention and Liz couldn't get all of her questions answered. At a cost of $1500/month for their full-time schedule, Your Kids Our Kids is far more expensive than Stinkin Chinatown Day Care but not quite as expensive as Love-A-Lot. They do not offer a part-time program, which is definitely a downer for us.

A Google search on Your Kids Our Kids did provide a lot of information. Unlike Stinkin Chinatown Day Care, they actually have a website! In addition, there are many reviews available and most of them are positive.

Your Kids Our Kids did not make our cut. Your Kids Our Kids is probably a good day care that works for many parents, but it is definitely more day care than pre-school. Aside from the lack of a part-time program, an actual classroom style environment is important to us. The search continues...

Labels: parenting

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