We went on 2 more preschool visits.  1 was a different location of one of the chain daycare/preschools.  We liked that one.  Really nice director, nice facilities....didn't WOW us, but it could work.

Our last preschool visit was one run by one of our local churches.  I had heard great things about it, especially from a mom friend who also has very shy kids who did well there.  We weren't able to arrange a time for a private tour because of our work schedules, but we were able to make it to their winter open house.  We LOVED this place...the classrooms were big, which several different play centers (kitchen, blocks, arts and crafts, cars/trains, etc).  It reminded me a of a mini Please Touch Museum.  They even had fish and other small critters in most of the classrooms.  They had a TON of Plan Toys (I LOVE Plan Toys) which must have cost them a fortune. 

This place has been open for a long time and the teachers' tenure is about 15 years, so there's very little turnover.  6:1 student teacher ratio.  Everything is well organized and the director was super friendly and knowledgeable about the different programs.  THIS is what I was looking for, but didn't find in any of the other play-based preschools we visited.

We do have to potty train by the fall hee hee.

Basically by show of hands, everyone there wanted their kid in the same class as we did and they only had 2 slots. I was like great...we find one we love and there's no room!  So we all handed in our applications and they said they would get back to us.  They waived the application fee for everyone because they felt bad that they would have to turn so many people away.  That was really nice of them.  A day later, we got a phone call to tell us that Tyler's in!!!  I was SOO excited! He will be the youngest one in his class...the cut off is Oct 1, and Tyler misses that by a week, but they said it was fine.

They kept talking about parent involvement in events and the PTA and stuff like that.  I didn't realize that started in preschool!!!!  I hope I'll have time to participate in something so I don't look like the loser mom who doesn't care about the school.

We only looked at 1 school today.  Today was a brand name, chain daycare/preschool.  I had kind of low expectations going in...but was pleasantly surprised by their program.

Pro's:
-teacher seemed wonderful and engaging.  She was in the middle of helping with potty training when we came in, so tyler won't HAVE to be potty trained (we really hope he will be by the Fall...we plan on starting if he starts showing signs of being ready...but he's one hard nut to crack.  we'll see what happens)
-Daily schedules and what they did are posted on the door for the parents to see.
-Monthly curriculums are posted for the parents to see.
-3 parent teacher conferences a year
-A half day is 5 hours (all the other programs are 2.5-3 hours for a half day).
-They have a 2.5-3.5 year old class (older 2's and young 3's)
-They have camps in the winter, spring and summer with 12 themes to choose from
-The part I liked best...."extracurricular" enrichment programs in several areas: Phonics, spanish, reading, math, music, active adventures, science and cooking.  Each program is an additional monthly fee.  But basically the kids get a half hour in their day with 3:1 teacher ratio.  So if I were to choose the phonics program, a teach would come in and work with just phonics for about a half hour each day that he's there.  The preschool teacher there said she put her daughter in the phonics enrichment program and she loved it.  I love that they have the option to really focus on their interests.  As they get older, the enrichment classes are a little longer (up to an hour).

Con's:
-space was really small...i think it was converted from a big house...so you had to walk through other classrooms to get to his classroom or to go outside
-outdoor play area was also really small...no room to really run around.
-it's located kind of on the border of the suburbs and west philly....I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with the location.
-teeny tiny parking lot and no street parking.  I am not good with teeny tiny parking lots...I get anxiety attacks when I have to K-turn.
-It's expensive compared to the others...but actually, I'm sure if I calculate it out hourly, it might not be THAT much more since it's basically twice as long as the other half day programs.

Luckily, there's another location not too far from us further into the burbs.  It's part of a small college and I've seen their outdoor gym driving by and it's pretty nice and on a big, fenced in field.  I'm hoping their facilities will be better.  The programs are the same across all the preschool locations.

Today, we went to visit 3 preschools....with both kids in tow.  I probably won't try that again.  1 was a church run program, 1 was a montessori school and 1 was a brand name daycare/preschool that we have in PA.  I had a list of questions to ask each program regarding their schedule, educational curriculum, disciplining tactics, how much parental involvement is required (apparently a lot of preschools require the parent to volunteer in some way).

The church run program.
Pro's: The people were very kind and church-y hahaha.  We spoke briefly with the directors and then went to visit the classroom he would be in.  I read somewhere that a sign of a good classroom setting is if the kids barely notice that you're there.  It means that they're engaged in class/teachers, etc.  When we stepped in, the kids in there barely gave us a glance.  I saw my friend's kid there and she didn't even notice us. Good sign. 
-The student teacher ratio was pretty good 6:1. 12 students max per class.  The kids were doing crafts/free play when we got there. 
-This is the program that had a young 3's class.
-They had an indoor and outdoor play area and the classroom seemed full of activites and toys. 
-The teachers were nice...came over right away to see if they could answer any questions. 
-Tyler had wandered off to play with the train set (we were shocked that he would leave our side since he's so shy).  Then they had clean up time and Tyler helped them clean up.  What the..? My child? King of Destruction helping to clean up?  Overall, he seemed very comfortable there.
-Discipline via time outs (not really a pro or con...I'm indifferent regarding time outs. I agree that sometimes it's necessary just to remove them for a few minutes.  I'm not entirely convinced if it works for certain kids (like tyler), but I don't mind if they try it.
-Price is REALLY nice.

Cons: They want a good amount of participation from the parents.  In general, I don't mind...but with my work schedule, I don't know if I'll have time to go out and buy the stuff necessary or take part in planning meetings, etc.  Snacks are provided by the parents for the ENTIRE class....they take turns providing snacks for the week.  So if you're in the 5 day class, you would have to provide snacks for the whole class for the whole week every few months.  Again, I wouldn't mind except I just don't know if I'll have time to do think of snacks (the allergy list posted was almost a page long!).  They also want at least once monthly participation in planning meeting, which again, I don't know if I'll have time to attend. 

The program also didn't seem to have too much in terms of "academics" in their curriculum.  I think during circle time, they would read 1 book, talk about the weather and what day of the week it was.  I spoke to another mom who said she didnt' care if her kid didn't learn anything educational...she just wanted him to learn how to play nicely with other kids.  Maybe it's the Tiger Mom in me, but I don't feel like paying thousands and thousands of dollars for Tyler to only learn how to play with other kids.  This seemed to be mostly playbased preschool, which is fine if that's what you want.

Must be potty trained.  We plan to have him potty trained by the fall anyway, but just in case he's as stubborn about potty training as he was sleep training, this might be an issue.

The Montessori School:
Pro's: I love the Montessori teaching method.  It's pretty close to how I teach Tyler stuff at home (by coincidence...I didn't go and study the montessori teaching method or anything) so I think it would be really good reinforcement to learn things the same way at school.  The guy running is was really nice and took us into the classroom to show us their teaching materials and what the kids would take away from it.  There were very little toys in this classroom...I think it's part of the montessori philosophy.
-They emphasized literacy and he said most kids leave preschool reading well. 
-They also had a good teacher student ratio 5-6:1. Small classes.
-Teachers get twice yearly CPR training (PA state laws require every 2 years, but the guy running it wasn't comfortable with that...he felt it was too long in between certifications), are randomly tested for drugs/alcohol, have extensive background checks done one them.
-All teachers are given a cell phone which they much carry on them at all times in case of emergencies.  Every little injury gets written up as incident reports, which are given to the parents.
-Flexible schedules...he said whatever days and time we want is fine.  NO CONTRACT!  It goes on a month to month basis...we can leave at any time if we're unhappy with the place.
-They don't look at the kids age to put them in classes.  When they first start off, they do...and for the most part, the kids are the same age.  But if the kid is more advanced, they don't have any qualms about asking if we would want to bump him up to the next class up (but he won't bump them up more than 1 year).  Since Tyler is an in between age, he said we could go with either the toddler class (2-3) or the preschool class (3-4), but he did recommend the preschool class since Tyler would be learning from the kids older than him.
-Will NOT need to be potty trained...he said it's part of the teaching
-They will provide snacks
-They don't do time outs.  The kids are taken aside and explained to about what they did wrong and how it hurt the other person.  It sort of is a time out in that the kids are removed from the rest of the crowd, but they don't have the kid sit in the corner for x amount of minutes.  They also frown upon yelling at the kids.

Cons: This school just opened last year, so it's new.  But, they do have a sister school in the next town over which has been open for 30 years and is run by the same guy.  They branched out to our area last year.
-The classrooms are small and there is no indoor gym area (although it is housed in a big church, so I wonder if they could use the church gym/cafeteria to run around in.  I forgot to ask).
-It's slightly more expensive than the church run programs because it is a private program (it's only housed in a church, not run by the church).

Unfortunately, we arrived during lunch time, so we didn't get to see the classroom in action.

Brand name daycare/preschool: This is one of those places that runs from infants up to Kindergarten.
Pro's: big, sunny rooms, lots of play things.

Con's: This place looked like a mess when we went to visit.  It's a 10:1 teacher student ratio.  The classrooms are set up weird.  it's like one long corridor with partial walls dividing the classes and a main common hallway running behind all the classrooms, so you can hear the classroom next to you.  Kids were everywhere.
-The teachers didn't seem too engaged in the students and one male teacher was just hollering at all his kids.  He didn't look happy at all.
-The owner didn't have copy of their teaching philosophy (which she kept talking about) or curriculum.  She gave me her personal copy (no one else asks for this?)
-Online, it said that the place had an early literacy program in place...but I didn't see any signs of that.
-There were cots everywhere on the floor.
-Expensive

So far, the Montessori program is the winner.  This one is more affordable than the other Montessori programs in the area...maybe because it's new?  I wished the classrooms were bigger/sunnier (it's in the basement level of the church)...but I guess it's okay that it's not.  The kids seemed to be well behaved...walked in a line, not running around everywhere.  I really liked their educational curriculum.  We're going to start out with 2-3 half days a week and then go from there.  But once we start full time preschool, it's going to be pretty pricey.  Sigh.  Was preschool always this expensive?!

We have to see 2 more on Monday, but Lenny liked it so much, he wants to cancel the other 2.  (of those two, 1 is a church program and the other is another brand name, private daycare/preschool).  We can't afford the other montessori programs...those are almost 20K a year.

I'm in the process of searching for a preschool for T.  First of all, the costs of some of the preschools are ridiculous.  Seriously? 20K per year for preschool?  I don't understand what they could possibly teach that would warrant 20K a year.  Those are typically the "brand name" preschools - the Montessori's, Goddards, the elite private schools, etc.  I am basically limited to the charity case preschools - the ones run by churches, where the tuition is lower because the church eats some of the cost as part of their community service. (Not to say that those are lesser in quality...some of my top choices regardless of price are the church preschools).

Here's my dilemna. The cutoff for preschool is 3 years old by some time in September.  Tyler has an early Oct birthday so he would be 1 month shy.  Most preschools, if they have space will let him in because he's so close and an extra person is ka-ching ka-ching for them.  The alternative would be for him to go to the toddler playgroup class which is age 2-3 (meaning they are 2 years old in the fall).

I think "academically" he would be fine in the 3yo class.  He may be a little behind in his speech, especially compared to the girls (he speaks in short sentences, but his pronounciation is still off on most words).  Maturity wise, he might fit in better in the 2-3 toddler class...but who knows, he may be fine being the youngest in the 3 yo class.  I feel like the toddler class might be a little "young" for him and I do want a little bit more of an academic setting instead of a playgroup setting.

Most of the top contenders are minutes away...I could walk it on a nice day.  There is one that's a little farther (10 minute drive) that as a young 3's class.  So everyone in that class will be turning 3 anywhere from Sept til December.  And that class progresses through preschool together, so they wouldn't be put into another 3 yo class when they do turn 3.  I like that idea a lot.  I'm not positive, though, if I want to send Tyler there all the way through pre-K....and I don't want to do a lot of switching preschools since it takes him so long to adjust to a new place.

Right now we plan on just sending him for half days, a few times a week.  We're going to go ahead and send him on the days I am off even though it would mean that we would have to pay for a sitter when I work AND pay for preschool when I'm off.  I just feel like I (or Lenny) want to be the one to take him and pick him up when he first starts out.  Hopefully, he'll be okay and the year after, we can do full time preschool.  By then, keira will be 2 and we were planning maybe to send them both somewhere instead of having a sitter come to us.  But then, we would prefer to find a place that offered full day classes for toddlers AND preschool (not all of them do...some are strictly preschool).

Sigh...who knew this would be so complicated.  I'm pretty much leaning to try to get him into a 3 year old class...but I'm always second guessing this...would he do better in a 2-3 year old toddler class?  Or would he be bored there?

Should I put him in the young 3's program, but then potentially have to send him and Keira to 2 different places?  Or start him in the young 3's and the next year, move him and keira somewhere else together?

I wish our Montessori school was more affordable.  I think that's such a great program for him...it fits him so well.  Hopefully, some of these church ones are Montessori based.  I have yet to visit any of these places, so hopefully the visit will help us make our decision.  I did ask around for opinions, so that helped a little.