Preschool Dilemma

[Anonymous]

We didn't get into any of our top 3 preschools (3's class) for the fall and so paid a non-refundable deposit ($350) for a spot at a preschool (PS1) located between work and home. Some of our concerns with PS1 are: larger classes (20 kids), older building, quality of food (a little bit more processed than I'd prefer). But the kids seem really happy, and we know a couple families that are either currently there or will be starting in the fall as well, and everyone has good things to say. Needless to say, they had openings, and so we put down the deposit to hold a spot for the fall.

So another preschool (PS2) offered us a spot this week. This program is closer to my work (like 2 blocks away) but is in an even older building. It's a smaller overall program and has 15 kids in the 3's class. The outdoor space seems a bit lacking, but the food provided is a bit healthier. It doesn't seem to be any "better" than PS1, and my gut tells me that it might be a touch worse in terms of the "curriculum"... But, it's $200 cheaper per month. They would require a $300 deposit to hold a spot for the fall.

If we get off the waitlist of any of our top 3 choices, we will likely take a spot at one of those places.

Given all of this information, what would you choose? My gut says to just stay with PS1, but my head says to save the money and go with PS2.

[Anonymous]

I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

[Anonymous]

I don't think you can really tell if there's a difference between 1 & 2 based on what you've said. The objective factor of fewer kids suggests 2 is better -- that's about it. All the other things (price, location, food) don't say anything about how they actually do with the kids.

If I were you, I'd visit both again and stay for a good 30 minutes. Pick a "transition" time to see how they manage that. Ideally, you'd see them transitioning between free play and organized activities, so you can see how the teachers handle any issues that arise with the kids while playing, and how they handle getting the kids into circle time or whatever. That should give you a good feeling of the place. The ideal time would start towards the end of drop-off in the morning so you catch the free-play, but not with all the bustle of the parents coming in and out.

[Anonymous]

Is this your first / oldest?

As I progressed as a mom I came to care more about the outdoor space and amount of time spend outdoors.

I get the draw of the smaller class but I would care more about child:teacher ratio.

I would also consider which school is more convenient to get to and if possible to know, which school would have kids that will also attend your elementary school / live in your neighborhood.

I personally would not care about the age of the building rather the classroom set up. I don't care all that much about processed food at school personally.

I have 3 kids and these are just my thoughts. All 3 kids will for various reasons likely attend different preschools and will all probably do fine in grade school regardless of what preschool they attended

Re: curriculum, I personally prefer more playbased but I have one that attends a more academic one (with other pros such as many kids who will attend elementary school together, 0.5 miles from our house, etc.). I suspect this DC will do largely the same in elementary school as the others who attend/ed playbased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

+1 As a former preschool teacher and now a mom of two toddlers- I completely agree with this assessment. There really should just be a play-based, emergent curriculum. I also think a smaller class is better.

[Anonymous]

It isn't how many kids are in the class, but the student-teacher ratio that matters. So, if the 20-kid class has 4 teachers, you'd have a 5:1 ration, whereas if the 15-kid class has two teachers, you'd have a 7.5:1 ratio. If each class has 2 teacher, I'd definitely go with the smaller class. A 10:1 ratio of 3 year olds seems too high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

Play based learning is different than just playing. Play based learning educates the child in the same areas as an academic/worksheet heavy classroom. Letters (and sounds), numbers and counting, colors and shapes--all those are taught just as well as with a worksheet, but in a way that a child can make connections in their head and using all their senses. The bonus is that they aren't burnt out by worksheets when they arrive to Elementary school. Of course some kids like worksheets, but many don't and those kids can end up with low self esteem if they aren't good at it, setting them up to feel like a failure before they even start K. Play based learning absolutely has structure as well. I think you're thinking of those daycares that are just child-minding (while some daycares have strong curricula, of course). I used to work at a preschool with worksheets and I saw some kids who became dejected when they couldn't trace letters well. There's no reason to have that experience at 3 or 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

preschool arms race!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

preschool arms race!

Bring it on!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

I actually have observed the opposite.

[Anonymous]

MD ratio is 1:10 two teachers with 20 kids. PS 1 is fine. Your children need to get used to larger class sizes. Wait until public Kindergarten when it is 1:27. What will you do then? Too picky a person to worry about $200.00

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a preschool teacher and I vote for P2. A class with 20 kids is much more chaotic and your child may get lost in the shuffle of dealing with the extra behavior problems that could come with a larger class.

I'm a fan of play-based learning. Take a look at their dress-up area and dramatic play. Do they let the kids paint freely or is there always an assigned "craft" that looks more like the work of an assistant than the child themselves? Finally, go with your gut when you are face to face with the director or doing a walk through. You want warmth and caring, versus strict and academic.

Strict and academic works well for some kids like mine who then thrived in school as they were well prepared. The kids who were in play based with any academics really struggled.

Academic preschools are on the wrong side of research and that approach can actually backfire.

[Anonymous]

Go for the smaller class size.

[Anonymous]

What's with the letters and numbers in preschool? You have k, 1, 2 to learn the letters and numbers. Kids also have plenty of time -years 3-12 to catch up to the other kids who did learn their ABCs. Don't cut their childhood short.
Kids don't need to know their letters and numbers so young. They need to learn how to play.
I loved big class sizes and we had much older kids in class. So much to learn from them. Teachers were juts facilitators. I remember other kids more than the teachers even though they were always there setting up arts and crafts or getting us dressed to go out.