When Joshua turned one and a half, I realized it was about
time for me to start looking for a preschool for him.
As I had the time to take care of him when he was younger, I
was exempted from the otherwise compulsory duty of finding a daycare for him.
I had to start from scratch while looking for a Williamsburg
Northside preschool for him to attend as applications were due in the fall
before enrollment.
I was sure about one thing- I did not want a preschool that focused
too much on structure as I felt that overly-structured preschool programs do
more harm than good.
There should be plenty of room for free play and child-mediated
exploration, both of which give wings to a child’s imagination and tug on
his/her impressionable, yet intelligent mind and nurture a child’s intrinsic abilities.
I felt that the Reggio
Emilia approach was a good place to start- hence, I started looking for preschools
in the Williamsburg Northside preschool which followed this preschool
philosophy.
I filtered out the viable options from the lot and delved in
deeper for more details about the preschools.
One particular Williamsburg Northside preschool caught my
eye for 3 reasons:
- It followed the Reggio Emilia approach,
- It had a lower school too that was run by the same parent institution, located not far. (The lower school also followed the Reggio Emilia approach) and lastly,
- It was a minute away from us.
Now, coming back to the more important factors that led me
to choose this preschool, now Joshua that has graduated from the same and is
attending lower school:
- The preschool had a balanced curriculum that included subjects like community service, music and art, apart from the conventional ones like math and science,
- It focused on all the core developmental areas which included complex and analytical thinking,
- The programs were targeted to encourage the children to be independent-thinking, creative and contributing individuals, capable of logical reasoning.
These points more or less sum up the school philosophy,
which, for me, was all that I wanted from a preschool for Joshua.
Good to hear about your experience. I have always been an overly protective father, but thanks to my son’s preschool, I have learnt to hold onto my horses. You can say that my son’s school has taken a lot of load off my mind.
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