Does anyone have or had a child at Busy Bee in Arlington?

[Anonymous]

We are considering this center for our 2 year old and wonder if there is anyone else out there who has had experience with them? They are a small center and there has not been much posted about them. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

sorry, i've never heard of ti. try asking on the the moms of north arilngton list serv.

[Anonymous]

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who would be willing to ask the Moms of Northern VA listserve, as sugested above? I do not live in one of their required zip codes so do not have access. I live on the border of Arlington and Alexandria and the local Moms of Alexandria group appears to not exist anymore (and even if they did may not know about Busy Bee. Busy Bee is between Crystal City and Army Navy Drive area. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Not sure if it is too late to respond to this post. Both of our kids went to Busy Bee for a time. One child was there from 7 mos - 4 yrs, the other was there from 6 mos - 2 yrs. The small size means that they can offer very personalized care. The staff was, overall, very loveable, and greeted each child with a big hug every morning. The small size can also turn into a bit of an issue as the child gets older. Our oldest child has a fall birthday, just past the VA cutoff date for kindergarten. Because the center is so small, he was the only one with a fall birthday in that situation. If he had stayed, he would have repeated the same preschool curriculum with mostly 3 yr olds in his class. We ended up deciding to switch him to a new center (Bright Horizons Crystal City) for his final year of care before kindergarten. That said, Busy Bee was willing to work with us and our child to make that final year work had we elected to stay. Our younger child turned out to be a special needs kid, and Busy Bee was more than willing to let a therapist from the county come into the center once a week to work with not only our child but with their caregivers.

They follow the Mother Goose curriculum for all children older than the infants (3 mos - 2 yrs), but still add in their own personal twists to daily learning and play. They let each child practice handwriting when they are ready, but they do not force it the way some other schools do (this can be good and bad as we've experienced). They do a lot of crafts, and have a really nice shaded outdoor play area. Meals are cooked on-site at the center (homemade roasted chicken, fish, meatballs, pasta, rice, etc.), a wide variety of fresh fruits, and every day they make a different kind of homemade vegetable soup. The kids LOVE it. I won't say that they are perfect. We certainly had our disagreements over the years. Overall they provided loving care and a good early learning environment for our kids. You could choose a lot worse than Busy Bee.

If you are looking for something in the Crystal City area, you should also look at Bright Horizons CC. I cannot - cannot - find adequate words to express how fantastic their pre-K program is. Friends of ours have had their kids at BHCC from preschool (2's) on up, and rave about the younger classes as well. If Busy Bee doesn't work out, look into BHCC. Best of luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you so much for your response. I have posted about this center a few times over the past 2+ years but since it is a small place I have never gotten a response before. Can you tell me more about the kinds of disagreements you experienced? Also, did you ever feel there was a language barrier? It seems like everyone is having a lot of fun but it does seem hectic and loud a lot but I have not been there during lunch, nap or quiet time yet. I like the small size because we are coming from an in-home daycare with just 9 kids (all 2.5 and younger, a few PT) so my DS has gotten a lot of one-on-one attention and I thought Busy Bee would be a nice size to transition to. I also like that the employees have all been there a long time -- this is a good sign -- and what a great playground. That being said, I don't like that I can't find much information on the place outside of the state inspections, which have been very good. Please feel free to share anything more and again, thanks for your response.

[Anonymous]

Let me start out by saying that an overwhelming majority of families absolutely love - LOVE - Busy Bee. For that reason, I hesitate to write anything negative about them. Chances are that your child would/will love it there too. It is small, and at times noisy, but it's not always like that. They do a good job of keeping things calm and quiet during work time and nap time, and even food time. And they love the children. As long as the children fit their mold of what is normal.
To make a long story as short as I can get it, let’s just say that our son was labeled a bad apple when he went through a rough patch, and it stuck with him. They put him through too many big changes too quickly due to circumstances, and didn’t give him enough time to adjust. This, in addition to what we think was sensory processing disorder and/or some mild fine motor delays, resulted in bad behaviors. We did everything we could the moment they started talking to us about his behaviors – and in the end took him to occupational therapy for a year – but for at least one person at the center, it was too late. He was a bad apple, the root of all of their problems, and that was that. Only one person felt this way, the majority did not. And our son really seemed to like it there because he adored his teacher. But at least 2 times a week when I picked him up at the end of the day and I’d ask, “How was his day?”, the response would be, “Oh he had a rough day.” This was code for what this person saw as him causing trouble, and she'd then launch into a description of everything that HE did wrong. I think that for about 2 years, I felt like a pretty rotten parent.
We moved him to Bright Horizons CC when he was just a few months short of 5 yrs old b/c we felt he’d outgrown their program (and b/c we’d heard so many good things BHCC’s pre-k). His first week, I met with his teachers, went over what I thought were all of his issues, and brought along his discharge info from OT. They said that they treat each child as if they have a clean slate. When we had our first parent/teacher conference after his first 6 weeks there, they said – what child were you talking to us about? All we see is a typical 4-5 yr old boy who is very perceptive and perhaps too bright for you guys. Six months later, the review we had was even more positive. So now I feel like a rotten parent for believing everything that this one person at Busy Bee had told me for 2+ years about how my son was never behaving properly.
So I think that as long as the child fits into what Busy Bee feels is normal, then they will flourish and you as a parent will love it. In retrospect, I think we should have moved our son to BHCC much sooner than we did, although part of his problem was that he was having trouble dealing with big changes and we didn’t know how best to help him through it. Moving him to a new center would have set him back. I could get more specific about everything that we went through, but this is probably enough for you. Really, you could do much worse than Busy Bee. BTW we never had a language barrier. We had our son at a center in Alexandria for a few short months, and we left there for Busy Bee in part b/c there were teachers at that other center who spoke NO English at all. Everyone at Busy Bee speaks at least rudimentary English, and most are fluent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me start out by saying that an overwhelming majority of families absolutely love - LOVE - Busy Bee. For that reason, I hesitate to write anything negative about them. Chances are that your child would/will love it there too. It is small, and at times noisy, but it's not always like that. They do a good job of keeping things calm and quiet during work time and nap time, and even food time. And they love the children. As long as the children fit their mold of what is normal.
To make a long story as short as I can get it, let’s just say that our son was labeled a bad apple when he went through a rough patch, and it stuck with him. They put him through too many big changes too quickly due to circumstances, and didn’t give him enough time to adjust. This, in addition to what we think was sensory processing disorder and/or some mild fine motor delays, resulted in bad behaviors. We did everything we could the moment they started talking to us about his behaviors – and in the end took him to occupational therapy for a year – but for at least one person at the center, it was too late. He was a bad apple, the root of all of their problems, and that was that. Only one person felt this way, the majority did not. And our son really seemed to like it there because he adored his teacher. But at least 2 times a week when I picked him up at the end of the day and I’d ask, “How was his day?”, the response would be, “Oh he had a rough day.” This was code for what this person saw as him causing trouble, and she'd then launch into a description of everything that HE did wrong. I think that for about 2 years, I felt like a pretty rotten parent.
We moved him to Bright Horizons CC when he was just a few months short of 5 yrs old b/c we felt he’d outgrown their program (and b/c we’d heard so many good things BHCC’s pre-k). His first week, I met with his teachers, went over what I thought were all of his issues, and brought along his discharge info from OT. They said that they treat each child as if they have a clean slate. When we had our first parent/teacher conference after his first 6 weeks there, they said – what child were you talking to us about? All we see is a typical 4-5 yr old boy who is very perceptive and perhaps too bright for you guys. Six months later, the review we had was even more positive. So now I feel like a rotten parent for believing everything that this one person at Busy Bee had told me for 2+ years about how my son was never behaving properly.
So I think that as long as the child fits into what Busy Bee feels is normal, then they will flourish and you as a parent will love it. In retrospect, I think we should have moved our son to BHCC much sooner than we did, although part of his problem was that he was having trouble dealing with big changes and we didn’t know how best to help him through it. Moving him to a new center would have set him back. I could get more specific about everything that we went through, but this is probably enough for you. Really, you could do much worse than Busy Bee. BTW we never had a language barrier. We had our son at a center in Alexandria for a few short months, and we left there for Busy Bee in part b/c there were teachers at that other center who spoke NO English at all. Everyone at Busy Bee speaks at least rudimentary English, and most are fluent.

New poster here. PLEASE email me at [e-mail]. My sons sounds almost EXACTLY like yours and we are having very similar issues in his current daycare. Funny thing is two of the daycares we are now considering are Bright Horizons Crystal City and Busy Bee! I would very much l like to get some additional information from you. Please, please email me if you don't mind. Thanks so much!!

[Anonymous]

This is probably too late to help the previous poster, but I wanted to put something up for others who are considering Busy Bee. I'm a fellow Arlington mom and we have had our daughter at Busy Bee for almost three years and couldn't be happier. The teachers there have been there for a long time, which I appreciate from a stability stand point. They also LOVE the kids like family. They truly go the extra mile to provide individualized care to each child's needs. The school's director, Rocio, is highly educated, intelligent and in our experience very perceptive in terms of identifying the root causes of any difficulties the kids are having. They focus on building the childrens' self esteem and teaching them to be empathetic with their classmates while at the same providing the structured environment needed for learning. Someone earlier mentioned that the school is noisy. I haven't found that to be the case at all. I have visited many many times over the years at all different times of the day and have never found the noise level to be synonomous with chaos. They have great control of the classroom. Kids are quiet and organized when they need to be and are loud and boisterious when appropriate. We have found that our daughter applies the manners and limits learned at school to our home environment, which we appreciate. There are also no problems with language barriers with the teachers... and on the plus side, they teach some Spanish to the kids, which is something I was looking for in a pre-school. Almost all the families who are at Busy Bee stay at Busy Bee from baby to Pre-K because it's such a wonderful place. It's small and hard to get off the waiting list, but I promise you it's worth it.