November 14th, 2007 - Maggie’s off to school!
Since she rarely sees other children, except at Sunday church preschool, we intended to sign Maggie up for the preschool here on campus come spring. They run only during the college semesters and take enrollments for spring semester.
When they have room. Which they don’t this spring.
So I scoped out other local preschools and given the prices, declined to pursue that avenue further. The least expensive was over $1000/school year. The Children’s Learning Center here on campus is only about $250 for 12 weeks. That was in our budget, $1000 wasn’t! Plus, none of them accepted kids except in September and they have to be potty trained.
We planned to sign Maggie and me up for a parent/child swim class through the rec department in the spring. So I looked through the booklet for other available morning activities. In doing so, I read the page of ads for local daycares. One of the places I was interested in is Arts for Kids! but they didn’t have a website and after finding out the prices elsewhere online, I didn’t bother making a phone call.
But now I did. What did I have to lose…plus we needed daycare all day this coming Tuesday and maybe they provided drop-in care. I called. They don’t actually have a preschool for 3 year olds–only the 4K program with the school district, which by the way is only THREE blocks away. (For those who know it–it’s on the grounds of the Paine, across the street from the back building.) But they do have children who attend part-time for the same reasons we are seeking.
They have a full time art teacher with a studio that the kids can go to at any time for as long as they want. Some kids spend hours every day in there! Of course, art activities also happen in the regular rooms. There are also teachers for dance/drama, music, environmental education, and Spanish, who come in once a week to each class. Unfortunately, the latter two right now are only in the afternoon. While we toured and talked with the director yesterday, Maggie stayed in the room. She brought home her first preschool art project already! She used glue (which she thinks is lotion–probably not a good connection there! But she’s never used glue at home before and adores lotion) and what I called “puffballs” to her (pompoms) and she proudly proclaimed that her paper had “footballs!”
And it is very affordable: even full time care (over 5 hours/day 5 days a week) is about $150/week for kids over 2 and not much more for infants/toddlers. That’s the least expensive I’ve seen, even less than the CLC here on campus. For hourly, which Maggie will be, it’s $6/hour. Eric chose 3 hours on Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday because she’ll get music class. And it includes lunch (which actually I’m not a fan of, since she’ll be eating meat, 1% non-organic milk, and who knows what else, but schedule-wise it makes sense to leave her there through lunch).
We specifically asked about diversity. There are only a few minority children (which is generally true of Oshkosh anyway) but they have a lot of diversity in income levels. They have a number of foster children, which we thought was neat. (The owner is a former foster Mom in fact.) They do accept children with special needs, as long as they can participate in a group environment.
And we can get additional hours when needed, so she’ll be able to be there all day Tuesday!
So why am I willing to pay for childcare 6 hours a week when we have a free stay at home Dad? Good question on a simple/frugal living blog of course. It’s mainly about socialization. Eric doesn’t want to participate in any parent/child activities–a Mom’s group or playgroups or such just aren’t his thing. So Maggie mostly sees the house, runs errands, and goes to church 3 times a month. Plus of course other odds n ends. But very few kids and few other adults are regularly in her life. A preschool gives her these things. I personally don’t feel it is terribly important to the average or above average preschooler to have these in their lives if their have enriching home lives, which I feel Maggie has. But Eric feels very strongly that she should. As does my favorite early childhood educator (a professor I work with weekly).
We can afford it. Eric will appreciate some time off. Maggie will ADORE this place, we’re sure. She loves art things, we just rarely do it at home. She loves music. It’s a casual place. It’s a bit busy–20 kids in her room and lots of things to do. Might be overwhelming but we’re hoping it encourages her to speak up (she’s been doing a lot of whispering lately) as well as improve her language skills (which are on the low end of average for an almost-3 year old). Last night when I went in before I went to bed to say goodnight to her, Maggie asked “Go downtown Daddy later?” Yeah, she’s already asking to go back to preschool!
Funny note: preschool is where she goes when we go to church. So she’s a bit confused now and thinks the new preschool is also called church. It’s actually in an old mall–the first indoor downtown mall in America.