How to pick a preschool / biggest regrets about a preschool?

[Zero102]

I am trying to pick a preschool for my daughter to go to next year and since I have never done this before I feel like I am going to miss something really obvious and important, so for anybody on here that has sent their kids to preschool, what are the really important things to look for? Have you sent your kid(s) to a preschool then discovered something that really made you regret picking that one?


I don't want this to be a conversation about sending kids to preschool vs not sending them, we have already had that discussion and have made up our minds about that so please don't bother beating a dead horse.

[codetrap]

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[Zero102]

Originally posted by codetrap
We really need a parenting subforum.

When I joined 9 years ago I would have strongly disagreed with you, now here I am asking parenting questions on a car forum :facepalm:

[codetrap]

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[DustanS]

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[benyl]

I know that my wife has us scheduled for 5 "preview" sessions for preschools around our house.

I would suggest you do the same and check them all out before deciding.

[VWEvo]

Good advice so far. I would suggest going to a few different pre schools. Ask about the qualifications of the teacher and in general make sure the school is clean, and looks like a place you would want to go if you were 4 years old. Preschool is great for social interactions, however we found our son really learned alot as well. The biggest part, was my son had a brutal time leaving my wife, and preschool got him to finally let go. Kindergarten was much easier for us that way.

[ExtraSlow]

Our daycare has a pretty comprehensive preschool program, so we won't be taking ours anywhere else. Since most preschools are half days (or three hours), I'm not sure how a family with two working parents can go to one of those. The logistics must be awful.

I do agree that preschool is mostly about the socialization. There aren't many "skills" that the kid needs to learn before grade 1.

[03ozwhip]

we just plunked my guy into the only preschool that i know of in my town. its clean, the teacher is nice, it has a ton of stuff that the kids can do and its generally what any parent should be looking for when taking your kid there.

i had help with this since i have some friends out here that have had their kids go there and 3 of their kids are actually in the same class, so he knows some kids already.

there are 14 kids, 12 girls and 2 boys, one of the boys being mine and the other being his best friend( a friend of ours kid). i think that is a good amount of kids for one class, i dont think a teacher should have anymore than that at this age (3-4), so that is another thing to consider, the attention that your kid is going to get, considering how many kids may be in the class.

[lint]

sometimes it's not about where you want them to go, rather who can take them. lots of preschools have waiting lists, at least reputable ones usually.

one thing that happened with my older son who started kindergarten this year was that most of the kids from his preschool class went elsewhere. so the transition was pretty hard on him the first few weeks, having to make new friends and adjust. he had spent the previous 2 years in preschool with the same kids. but it's all good now.

[Zero102]

Originally posted by DustanS
Personally, when choosing preschools for my children, I didn't put much thought into them except for making sure it was a safe and secured environment. Preschool was more of a social learning experience I wanted them to have to be prepared for kindergarten. There are a variety of schools that are adement about squishing in a bunch of knowledge versus just letting them be kids, and letting them socialize with other children. My kids are already academic genius', so this wasn't needed. ;-)

...

You have to decide what you want for your children, and what your goals are for placing them in preschool. Then just shop around and find the ones who have multiple teachers, lock the doors behind them, have excellent hygiene practices, Etc.

Good luck!

I think we are in a similar boat as you, she is demolishing all of the milestones and is having no problem with anything that I could consider academic at this time. I mostly care about getting her some socialization time with other kids and maybe having her take some instructions from people other than us to prepare her for the rest of her education.


Originally posted by benyl
I know that my wife has us scheduled for 5 "preview" sessions for preschools around our house.

I would suggest you do the same and check them all out before deciding.

I was worried that doing classroom visits at so many different preschools would make us look insincere, but I suppose they don't know how many others we are looking at ;)


Originally posted by VWEvo
Good advice so far. I would suggest going to a few different pre schools. Ask about the qualifications of the teacher and in general make sure the school is clean, and looks like a place you would want to go if you were 4 years old. Preschool is great for social interactions, however we found our son really learned alot as well. The biggest part, was my son had a brutal time leaving my wife, and preschool got him to finally let go. Kindergarten was much easier for us that way.

What kind of qualifications do preschool teachers really need? Is there a legal minimum education they have to possess? Any licensing they (or the school) require? Our daughter had bad separation anxiety when she was little, although it has subsided a bit now she is still very shy, I am sure it will be a nightmare getting her to stay for the first few days.


Originally posted by ExtraSlow
Our daycare has a pretty comprehensive preschool program, so we won't be taking ours anywhere else. Since most preschools are half days (or three hours), I'm not sure how a family with two working parents can go to one of those. The logistics must be awful.

I do agree that preschool is mostly about the socialization. There aren't many "skills" that the kid needs to learn before grade 1.

Interesting point about the scheduling, my daughter will be 3 this fall, my son will be almost 2 and we'll have a third kid just a couple months old (if all goes well) so scheduling might be tricky. Maybe we should focus on finding somewhere that starts early enough I can drop her off and then my wife would only have to pick her up...


Originally posted by 03ozwhip
we just plunked my guy into the only preschool that i know of in my town. its clean, the teacher is nice, it has a ton of stuff that the kids can do and its generally what any parent should be looking for when taking your kid there.

i had help with this since i have some friends out here that have had their kids go there and 3 of their kids are actually in the same class, so he knows some kids already.

there are 14 kids, 12 girls and 2 boys, one of the boys being mine and the other being his best friend( a friend of ours kid). i think that is a good amount of kids for one class, i dont think a teacher should have anymore than that at this age (3-4), so that is another thing to consider, the attention that your kid is going to get, considering how many kids may be in the class.

Is 14 kids to 1 teacher a pretty typical student:teacher ratio? For people who have had their kids in a preschool, what were the student:teacher ratios like? To me 14:1 sounds like way the hell too many kids :nut:


Originally posted by lint
sometimes it's not about where you want them to go, rather who can take them. lots of preschools have waiting lists, at least reputable ones usually.

one thing that happened with my older son who started kindergarten this year was that most of the kids from his preschool class went elsewhere. so the transition was pretty hard on him the first few weeks, having to make new friends and adjust. he had spent the previous 2 years in preschool with the same kids. but it's all good now.


Argh, now I am worried that we haven't started the search early enough... That, or I'll pick a school, she will get in then I'll have to wonder if we picked a good school early enough, or a crappy school that will never have a waiting list :banghead:

Unfortunately we don't know where she will be going to kindergarten - We live in Royal Oak, we moved 1 block from the elementary school (which at the time had plenty of space to spare) to give us a sure shot at getting her in there, then they filled up and introduced the lottery and we have no fucking clue if she will get in or not.



Thanks for all the advice guys, this is helping!

[ExtraSlow]

You are waaaay overthinking this.
The "best" preschool won't realyl help your kid out that much more than an "regular" one. As long as the kids are safe, and they learn some socialization, that's about it. This isn't like comparing Harvard to Sait.

[sillysod]

Originally posted by codetrap
We really need a parenting subforum.

yes.... yes we do. we have a subforum for Medicine Hat/Lethbridge that hasn't been posted in since July.

Southern Alberta at Beyond.ca (http://forums.beyond.ca/category/123/southern-alberta/)

[VWEvo]

To further clarify about qualification for Preschool. Alot of preschool's have professional educated teachers. I think this is a huge plus as alot of them have training in child psycology. Is this absolutely essential? No, but considering some have them, I would use that as a way of measuring one against the other.

[FixedGear]

http://www.parentingforums.org/

[sillysod]

^^^ haha

I wanna read threads about urinary tract infections and going into labor. :D

[clem24]

I dunno... It's a freakin' preschool. How many of you Beyond Ballers went to some genius preschool? Heck how many of you actually finished your undergrad?!? This is the generation of worrying about everything.

If you want a recommendation, which preschool did the special little snowflake go to? Just go to that one.

On a serious note.. My kid made some friends that we don't keep in contact with, learned how to speak English (I was hoping he'd pick up the teacher's English accent ahahaha - he didn't), and made some crude crafts in preschool. All typical of a 3 year old. Let your kid enjoy being a kid.

[Melinda]

We just put our son into the one down the street from us. It's clean, fun, they have qualified teachers and a predictable structure to each class (which kids seem to do better with).

Lucas loves it, this is his second year. His class is 18 kids and there are 2 teachers in there at the same time with another one that goes between them and the other class next door.

For us preschool was and is purely about socialization. He's been kicking ass and taking names with his physical and intellectual milestones pretty much all of his life. Even still, the school keeps him stimulated and he's excited to go back to each class.

[Zero102]

It isn't about picking just the right preschool to make my kid a genius or something like that, it is more about finding the right criteria to pick the right preschool for us, one that my daughter will like but also one that I will like.

To give a comparison, I bought a new car a couple years back, about a week after picking it up I found out the one-touch windows were in the down direction only and a couple weeks after that I found out the USB port on the radio will only play music from a usb storage device, not a phone that is in USB storage mode or similar. If I had ever had one-touch windows or a radio with a USB port before I might have known to check these things. It's not like I would have bought a different car because of little shit like that, but you still feel some disappointment and frustration when you find out something you don't like because you weren't familiar enough to check beforehand. I am looking for the same level of things when it comes to preschool, more like, what are some things that would be annoying or disappointing about a preschool that I should know going into it?

I just found out a new potential issue tonight while closely reviewing the web site of one of the schools we are considering: they have a late charge of $5/5 min per time you are late. We aren't the type of people that are generally late for anything but that seems like the sort of thing that would really piss me off should it ever be a problem.

Thanks for all the advice guys, you have given me some big things and some little things to go on, beyond to the rescue again :thumbsup:

[ExtraSlow]

The late fees may be pretty standard. My daycare, and the last one, both charged $1/min for late pickups, and that rate was set by the province I believe. Plus, once you are 1 hour late, your kid goes straight to social services. Being late for picking up your kid is a BIG deal

[sputnik]

My cousin is a kindergarten teacher and has said that most of the kids who go to pre-school get pretty bored in kindergarten because more and more pre-schools these days are using a kindergarten curriculum instead of just letting the kids play games and do crafts.

So don't use is as a means for your kid to get smarter but rather just a socialization tool if you kid hasn't been in a classroom or group learning situation before. Most teachers will say that as long as your kid has been in some sort of group class (music class, karate, swimming, sports teams, sunday school etc) they will be just fine skipping pre-school altogether.

[Masked Bandit]

As others have mentioned, you are WAY overthinking this. There are three preschools in our immediate area and I would consider them all interchangeable. I think this type of "business" is pretty heavily regulated with respect to operating conditions and staff qualifications so I would be surprised to see a big variance from one facility to the next. The biggest benefit of preschool is the socialization angle and just getting kids used to the idea of going somewhere on a scheduled basis and having an authority figure lead the group.

The timing could really be a pain in the ass though if both you & the wife are working. If you can swing it, at least until all the kids are in school full time, stay at home Mom FTW. A little extra cash is always nice but having the boss at home makes life SO much easier.

[speedog]

Originally posted by clem24
I dunno... It's a freakin' preschool. How many of you Beyond Ballers went to some genius preschool? Heck how many of you actually finished your undergrad?!? This is the generation of worrying about everything.

If you want a recommendation, which preschool did the special little snowflake go to? Just go to that one.

On a serious note.. My kid made some friends that we don't keep in contact with, learned how to speak English (I was hoping he'd pick up the teacher's English accent ahahaha - he didn't), and made some crude crafts in preschool. All typical of a 3 year old. Let your kid enjoy being a kid. Your 3 year old learned how to speak english in preschool?

[Zero102]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
The late fees may be pretty standard. My daycare, and the last one, both charged $1/min for late pickups, and that rate was set by the province I believe. Plus, once you are 1 hour late, your kid goes straight to social services. Being late for picking up your kid is a BIG deal

Ah, it is for when you are late picking them up, I thought it was for dropping them off late, it didn't say on the site, that makes so much more sense! I would never be late picking them up, or my wife, I agree, that is a big deal

[clem24]

Originally posted by speedog
Your 3 year old learned how to speak english in preschool?

Ya we don't speak English at home; only Cantonese (which is quite difficult as I like to talk to my wife in English sometimes but we try to speak Cantonese to each other as much as possible). He's picked up 100% of his English from external sources. He's also a "late bloomer" because his birthday is in Feb and we decided to start him early as he makes the cut off. So he entered Kindergarten as one of the youngest. First 2 weeks teacher was concerned because he wasn't talking and it didn't seem like he understood anything but another 2 weeks go by she's like "oh, never mind" LOL. He just needed to get comfortable and now apparently he won't stop talking. But yeah he'll be 5 in Feb and completely fluent in English and Cantonese.

BTW for anyone who cares, we enrolled him in the Early Discoveries Nursery School (inside a church in Hawkwood):

http://www.earlydiscoveries.ca/en/

He started in the Wilbury Gang which is a parent/tot class (so you go into class with him) when he was 2.

We enrolled him in Fun2Learn (inside a church in Dalhousie) when he was 3:

http://www.fun2learnpreschool.com/location.html

In anyone is curious, neither are actually affiliated with the church; they just rent the space.

[benyl]

We are looking at getting a Mandarin speaking Nanny to teach our son Mandarin. He is only 21 months, but speaks English like a 3.5 year old.

Any Mandarin pre-schools?

[speedog]

Originally posted by benyl
We are looking at getting a Mandarin speaking Nanny to teach our son Mandarin. He is only 21 months, but speaks English like a 3.5 year old.

Any Mandarin pre-schools? Contact the CBE Mandarin bilingual school in Highwood - I'm sure they'd be able to point you in the right direction.

[JRSC00LUDE]

Originally posted by codetrap
We really need a parenting subforum.

This made me laugh so much! It's funny because it's true hahaha. It is quite the thing this little online community has become over the years hey?

Good luck OP, I can't help you but I'll be in the same boat soon enough. :thumbsup:


Clem24 - that is awesome man.

[black_2.5RS]

Originally posted by DustanS
I have one friend (Asian) who doesn't care about the "social" side, as much as his daughter becoming a doctor by the age of 24, so he chose an 'upper class' preschool so she can be super educated.


Out of curiousity, what pre-school is this? I would be interested in comparing curriculums for a regular one vs. one on the upper crust.

[Zero102]

Originally posted by clem24


Ya we don't speak English at home; only Cantonese (which is quite difficult as I like to talk to my wife in English sometimes but we try to speak Cantonese to each other as much as possible). He's picked up 100% of his English from external sources. He's also a "late bloomer" because his birthday is in Feb and we decided to start him early as he makes the cut off. So he entered Kindergarten as one of the youngest. First 2 weeks teacher was concerned because he wasn't talking and it didn't seem like he understood anything but another 2 weeks go by she's like "oh, never mind" LOL. He just needed to get comfortable and now apparently he won't stop talking. But yeah he'll be 5 in Feb and completely fluent in English and Cantonese.

BTW for anyone who cares, we enrolled him in the Early Discoveries Nursery School (inside a church in Hawkwood):

http://www.earlydiscoveries.ca/en/

He started in the Wilbury Gang which is a parent/tot class (so you go into class with him) when he was 2.

We enrolled him in Fun2Learn (inside a church in Dalhousie) when he was 3:

http://www.fun2learnpreschool.com/location.html

In anyone is curious, neither are actually affiliated with the church; they just rent the space.

The fun2learn place sounds a bit religious to me, it says on the web site that they say grace and a prayer so that's probably out for us, but we're looking into early discoveries. Is there a reason why you moved your kid from early discoveries to fun2learn?

[clem24]

Originally posted by Zero102


The fun2learn place sounds a bit religious to me, it says on the web site that they say grace and a prayer so that's probably out for us, but we're looking into early discoveries. Is there a reason why you moved your kid from early discoveries to fun2learn?

Ahahaha I didn't even notice that. Honestly my wife picked everything so I have no idea why. My wife is a closet Catholic (born into it but doesn't attend church, we only say grace at her parents house, etc...). I am leaving religion as his own choice without influencing him either or. We were pretty happy with the fun2learn. My middle daughter will be in early discoveries soon I think.

[LollerBrader]

Originally posted by Zero102
I am trying to pick a preschool for my daughter to go to next year and since I have never done this before I feel like I am going to miss something really obvious and important, so for anybody on here that has sent their kids to preschool, what are the really important things to look for? Have you sent your kid(s) to a preschool then discovered something that really made you regret picking that one?


Make a very short list about what's important (Safety/convenience/Second language, etc).

Then, find a few preschools that match, and interview all three.

Start a year in advance to ensure availability.

Don't be shy to evaluate based on your gut.


Our own choices were limited from the start, based on second-language needs, but we were very happy with the choices and outcome.


Sounds like beyond is growing up.