| |
 
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 end, if all goes as planned, is a
child fully prepared 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 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
and less like 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. 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 quality preschool do? Well, 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 and
stimulating environment. As children near Kindergarten age, a quality 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 their child has a nice 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 in all but our APK rooms. Young children don't need to be confined to
a desk or isolated in a boxy 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 hedge fund? Maybe, but the truth is
that young 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 two leading providers, HighReach and Mother Goose
Time. These robust programs provide 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 craft project 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.
Why KidWorks Doesn't Do VPK
As far as we know, we're the only preschool in Gainesville that does
not participate in the Florida VPK subsidy program. We are approved to offer VPK (the
curriculum we use for our three year olds would meet the VPK standards for four year olds)
but we've chosen not to, for many of the same same reasons we don't participate in the
Early Learning Coaltion subsidy program, or the USDA food subsidy program. These programs
are useful, and they serve a legitimate need in the community. But accepting funding
invariably involves accepting some level of bureaucratic intrusion in the operation of the
school. Very early on, we made a deliberate decision to take a pass on the subsidies in
exchange for our independence.
KidWorks Tioga APK Center Featured In The Gainesville Sun:
Local teachers incorporate technology into classrooms
Erica Brough/Gainesville Sun
Preschoolers at KidWorks in Town of Tioga listen watch as their
teacher conducts a lesson using one of the school's new 52-inch flat screens. Children are
being introduced to computers at a younger age as school's incorporate technology into the
classroom.
Read
the full article here
|
The KidWorks Story: We Built It For
Our Kids. You'll Love it For Yours.
We are a local Gainesville family, and KidWorks is
our family business. Back 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. She spent weeks
touring area preschools. No "dream" centers. Plenty 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 was KidWorks, considered by the
Gainesville community to be among the very finest preschools in the region.
We opened our first center in 1997. A
"dream" preschool? It's as close as we can come, and we get better at it every
day. In 2000, KidWorks became the first preschool to offer live internet webcams in the
classrooms. 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. In 2009, we completed construction of a new high tech facility exclusively for
our APK Program. In 2010, our Millhopper school's APK room received a complete remodel and
technology upgrade.
As working owners, we run our own schools, every day
(which is why there aren't more KidWorks). Having working owners on site can mean the
difference between a good preschool and a great one.
Technology To Keep Parents
Connected
KidWorks was born in the digital age, in
1997, just as the internet was ramping up. Looking back, if we'd taken the money we used
to open the schools and just bought some Apple stock instead, we'd be millionaires by now,
just like Forrest Gump. But I digress. From the start, we've always used technology to
keep our parents more connected to their children, because even a little uncertainty about
your child's welfare is the worst stress you can endure. You simply cannot give your best
at work if you're not completely confident about how your child is doing. We were the
first (and only) preschool in Florida to issue digital pagers (remember those?) to every
family at the center. Throughout the day, we broadcast little class-specific text messages
about where the children were in the school and what they were up to. Parents were hooked.
But we were replacing a half dozen lost pagers every month at $50 a pop. So...
In 2000, we became the first (and only)
preschool in Gainesville to install live internet webcams. Parents and out of town
family members were now able to log on anywhere and check in on their little ones. As the
camera technology and internet speeds have increased, we've upgraded the cam systems to
take advantage, with bigger, clearer images and faster refresh speeds.
|
An actual screen grab from one
of Tioga's live streaming webcams, viewable on any PC, Tablet or Smartphone |
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.
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. KidWorks will
never charge you a fee to be on our waitlist,
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. |
|
