Need excellent child care? Open Center for Children has a few spots

[t-stop.livejournal.com]

Hi Davis Sq Community!

The Open Center for Children (www.open-center.org/) has a couple spots open in both their Green Room (2 1/4 to 3 1/2 yo) and their Blue Room (3 1/2 to 5 yo).  If you are like we were and have a 2 year old, a need to work and no day care.. stop panicking and give them a call!

My daughter has attended for 2 years now and the teachers completely turned around my opinion of what the day care / pre-school experience would and could be.  I'm not sure that we've made a better decision for her than to send her to OCFC.

The web-page has all the details, but a here's a bullet list of key things for me:

• Located right near Teele Square / Tufts.  They take advantage of the location to have "Jumpstart" students from Tufts as well as various outings and special visitors (concerts, fire stations, dentist, doctor, a pilot, etc).
• Open 8am to 5:30pm (you can get an 8 hour work day in as long as you don't commute that far).
• the teachers really care for the kids and the director (Gale) really cares for the teachers as well.  
• They are masters of "stealth learning" (my phrase, not theirs).  My daughter is learning a ton of academic stuff (reading, writing, even some math) along with social and physical skills (which all 2-5 year olds need in abundance) all without that "I'm in school" feeling.
• They are accredited with NAEYC.
• The student body and staff body are quite diverse.

Visit their web page for more information or send me a live journal message if you want a more detailed parent point of view. 

Comments

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thanks for posting this. I've cross-posted to b0st0n_parents as well.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

We also think they are wonderful, and I'd be happy to answer questions from the perspective of another satisfied parent. (We're moving on after 2 years ourselves, because sadly paying for full time daycare when only one parent will be working full time for the forseeable future and when there's a terrific public pre-k in Somerville was not going to be a justifiable priority. But they've been 2 great years, and we will really miss the open center!)

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

There is a pre-k school in somerville? I didn't even know. After some research I see that it's Capuano School. Is it open to all residents of Somerville?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Yup - Capuano houses 8 classrooms of pre-k for kids age 4 by September 1 (ie. exactly 1 year younger than kindergarten age), as well as a bunch of other early childhood programs and some kindergarten classrooms (kids can either transfer to another elementary school or stay at Capuano for kindergarten, I believe.) It's 5 days a week, 8:45am - 1:45pm (about an hour shorter than the regular elementary school day.) Currently free and open to all residents (this year, there was a lottery and something like 80% of students got in and 20% were put on the waitlist, in the past they've had just enough spaces to meet demand.) It might have some kind of income-based fees in the future according to the Somerville Journal.