As a parent, choosing the right daycare or preschool for your kids is one of the hardest decisions during early childhood. It can be hard to know what to look at when trying to find the right childcare provider for your family.
How do you choose the right preschool or daycare for your kids?
As you start looking for childcare, you want to consider a few things to help determine your decision-making criteria.
Daycare or Preschool Location
Where do you want the preschool or daycare center to be located? Should it be convenient to your home, office, your extended family? How far are you willing to commute each day? A 20 or 30-minute drive might not seem like a big deal one time, but doing it daily for several years can get real old fast.
Full-time or Part-time programs
Next, you want to think about what type of schedule you want for your childcare center. Do you need to have extended care hours to accommodate your work schedule? Are you looking for part-time to help your child socialize with kids their age? Do you want 2 or 3 days a week or 5 days a week? There are so many different schedule options. Some childcare centers offer part-time care, while others may offer only full-time care.
What type of curriculum do they teach?
Daycare centers and preschools will have different types of curriculum they use with their students. Do you want a program that’s religious or not? Are you looking for Montessori or not? Are you looking for a child-led curriculum, play-based, outdoor programs, etc.? There are lots of options out there. If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for, it’s a good idea to visit a few different types of daycares and preschools and ask about their curriculum.
Researching Daycares and Preschools
Once you have an idea of what you want and where you’d like it to be located, it’s an excellent time to research specific daycares and preschools in your area. You’ll want to use your decision-making criteria to create a list of potential centers that might work for your family, and from there, do a bit of research. You can look at online reviews, ask friends and family, ask in your local parents’ group if you’re in one. It’s quite helpful to see if you know anyone who’s sent their children to one of the schools you’re considering. You can learn a lot from the experiences of other parents.
Making Your Decision
When it’s time to make your decision, you’ll most likely want to tour the daycare or preschool in person, meet with the director, see if you can view the room your child would be in and meet the teacher they’d have if they enrolled. A tour of the daycare or preschool can help you solidify your decision. You want to make sure you’re choosing the right childcare center for your family, and sometimes you have to see it in person to know which one is right.
If you’re looking for a daycare or preschool in the Spring, TX area, we’d love to meet with you. Contact us today to learn more about Klein-Spring Montessori and find out why area families have chosen us for their childcare needs for more than 35 years.
