If you're a new parent, get ready for the fastest four years of your life.

Over that relatively short span of time, a child develops from a struggling infant to a confident, socially acclimated pre-schooler ready to take on kindergarten and the world. What happens in between is what KidWorks is all about. We view a child's development in terms of a spectrum. At one end, a child's needs are fairly primitive. Nutrition, a clean dry bum, a nice warm place to have a nap, some fun things to look at and play with. Slowly, those needs give way to more complex fundamentals. Social interaction, recognizing shapes and colors, identifying letters and numbers, creative expression, language skills. At the far end, if all goes as planned, is a child fully developed for entry to Kindergarten.

Hey! What Happened To That Adorable Little Baby?

Age Three is a phenomenal transitional age for a child. They enter this key age as cute, (maybe a little ornery) waddling little tikes. Kindergarten is light years away. Twelve months later- Oh my God!- Kindergarten's around the corner. Somehow in the span of twelve months your child seems more like a little kid than a little baby.They've only got a year to be ready! It's panic time. Have you done the right thing? Is your little child going to be able to walk into that big kindergarten class and do well?

The good news is, they'll do fine. Whether they went to KidWorks, or another quality center, or if they stayed at home with Mom or Dad, Kindergarten really is just the start of formal education. It's designed around the concept of developmentally appropriate practice. And if you remember Kindergarten yourself, you'll recall there was quite a bit of playing, running around, snacking and napping thrown in there, too.

So, what does a good preschool do? Well, let's not forget that it makes it possible for you to earn a living and give your family financial security. Someday that little bundle of joy will be choosing a college and it would be nice to be able to afford it. For your child, it provides a nice, clean, safe, fun, nurturing environment. As children near Kindergarten age, a good preschool begins to build the social and intellectual skill sets necessary to make the transition to school comfortably and with confidence.

The Power Of Play ( Also known as "All that money for what?")

Every good parent at some point looks at that huge monthly outlay for child care expense and wonders if they're doing the right thing. Is it enough that the child has a nice, safe, clean place to spend the workday? For that kind of money and time, shouldn't they be learning something? I don't mean the stuff they get from playing with others and interacting with their environment and learning their numbers and letters, I mean really super jumbo advanced learning, like maybe being able to compose a piano sonata, or name all of the heads of state in alphabetical order, or speak fluent Japanese?  

If you’ve looked around KidWorks, it’s obvious right away that the typical trappings of a "classroom" are conspicuously absent here. We don’t believe pre-school aged children need to be confined to a desk and isolated in a square room in order to learn. Quite the contrary, research and our own experience, has taught us that children do much better in a space that is organic, dynamic and engaging to the senses. For us old folks, learning requires a conscious effort. It's like work. Kids don't make that switch; it's all folded into their daily experiences. As long as they're engaged, they're learning, and they really enjoy it. Our job is to keep them engaged, and progressively introduce broader and more complex concepts through a balance of formal curriculum, guided play and free play.

Does this sound like an excuse by us for not teaching your two year old how to start his own dot-com company? Maybe, but the fact is younger children learn best through a balance of guided, structured play, formal instruction, and free play.

Curriculum

Beginning with the one-year-olds, we use a professional learning curriculum by HighReach, and Mother Goose Time. These robust programs provides developmentally appropriate activities, daily lesson plans and integrated themes. However, we are not beholden to the prepared curriculums. We use them to provide a consistent series of guideposts, but we encourage our staff to step outside the prepared curriculum when a good opportunity to do so presents itself. For example, if the letter of the month is "P", and Tuesday's prepared curriculum activity is a worksheet coloring in and cutting out little pizzas, we'd much rather the teacher take the kids into the kitchen to make (and eat) little pizzas.

If we and you as partners have done our jobs, the first day of Kindergarten goes like this: Your child strides into the new elementary school like she owns the place, pausing for a moment to watch with curiosity the inevitable crying child/crying parent scene in the hallway, walks directly up to her new teacher, introduces herself and asks politely where her desk is. Ready to go from Day One. Good manners, good social skills, good academic preparation. Your basic dream-kid for a Kindergarten teacher.

The most common complaint we hear is that KidWorks kids are bored in Kindergarten, having already been exposed to the fundamental instructional and social elements by us. Generally the schools adapt to children with advanced skill sets with their own "gifted" programs and it hasn't been problematic. The parents (and we) consider it a compliment. If you'd like, when you tour, we can provide you with current and prior client references.

The KidWorks Story

We are a local Gainesville family, and KidWorks is our family business. In 1996, our eldest son was four and his younger brother was two. We wanted a "dream" preschool for them. Cathy, the school's director, held a degree in elementary education and intended to return to teaching. We toured several preschools. No "dream" centers. A couple of nightmare ones.

In a moment of questionable sanity we asked why we couldn't create our own dream preschool. We couldn't think of a good reason. (We can think of a few now, but that's a different story) The result is KidWorks, considered by the Gainesville community to be one of the finest preschools in the area. A "dream" preschool? It's as close as we can come, and we get better at it every day. In 2005 the KidWorks family doubled with the addition of our second school, located in Tioga Town Center. KidWorks at Tioga is a great example of a high-concept design collaboration between a really good preschool program and a first-rate developer.

Who Is KidWorks For?

KidWorks is centered around the concept of providing an outstanding preschool experience to children of families with working parents. To that end we are open more days each year and for longer hours each day than other centers which may exist more to provide part-time enrichment programs to families who don't necessarily require full time care. As a result, we don't offer part-time or part-day programs. We recommend several of the area's church-affiliated centers, or Montessori schools to families looking for part time programs.

About Our Waitlist

We don't maintain a chronological waitlist. Instead, we have a waiting pool of families who have expressed interest. When a space becomes available, we go to the waitlist for a  new child who will best fit the mix of the existing class. For example, we'll want a child of roughly the same age, since we keep the children grouped according to when they'll enter Kindergarten.  We also consider the current mix of the class behaviorally. Is the class mix currently more boys than girls? Is the class predominantly aggressive or passive?

Next, we look at the waiting families to find children that are the best fit for the class. Amongst the eligible families, we give preference to those referred by existing clients. We will keep you on file unless and until a space becomes available for you. However, once a space has been offered to you and it is declined, we'll remove you from further consideration.

Please note that we do not accept waitlist entries by telephone. Prior to being placed on the waitlist, please schedule and complete a tour. If possible, both parents should attend.  After your tour, if you would like to be added to the school's waitlist we can do so at that time.

Need to know more?

Make an appointment and tour the school most convenient to you. Call us at 352 335-1335 (Northwest)  or 352 331-3833 (Tioga). We'd love to show you around and introduce you to the best preschool teaching teams in Gainesville.