The Children's Garden Preschool — Local services in Atlanta

We had never heard of this school before coming across it by chance online. The website was informative with all details about their pedagogical approach and tuition and the school also turned out to be in our neighborhood, so we joined the waiting list for our 1 1/2 year old daughter in their "Starlings" (19mo - 3yo) class. Being from a pedagogue family (my mother is a specialist in early education and I am a social pedagogue), I was impressed at my first school visit guided by the director Miss Sally. It looked different from a traditional daycare.

The school's approach is firmly based on fostering children's personal abilities and natural inclinations. I like that the teachers treat children as complete individuals, they don't baby them or have to wrangle them, but rather let them to explore each other and their environment, organize themselves and teach them to use words to solve disputes. They encourage self-sufficiency by teaching essential social skills such as: dressing and undressing, organizing their clothes (hanging up their coats on a hook, putting on mittens, hats and boots), taking care of their lunch; potty training etc. These aspects of early education are so often neglected by traditional preschools in favor of teaching letters, numbers and shapes. I believe there is a right time and place for every kind of knowledge, and in this stage, skills of self-sufficiency and interpersonal relationship skills are paramount.

The teachers are also very knowledgable in children's various developmental stages—it is always a challenge to work with children of varying ages, but they use that to their advantage, encouraging the older ones to teach the younger ones.

The other distinction of the Children's Garden from other daycares is the teachers' shared involvement in child rearing. They are not there to simply babysit; they guide children toward developmental progress. They also advise parents on how to create a similar conducive environment in the home– be it by limiting television viewing, encouraging schedules and consistency, and promoting healthy organic eating versus processed snacks. To be honest, every time I interact with the teachers, I actually feel like I'm learning something.

One of my daughter's favorite activities is their weekly soup preparation. Each child is encouraged to bring a vegetable and everyone joins together to chop them up. By the end of a school day she excitedly tries to tells me about her day's experience and I can tell she loves the way she is trusted to take part in this important activity. Before, I would not have trusted her with a knife to chop veggies at home, but again, to my surprise, the teachers instruct them how to handle a knife and she is now more aware of what she is eating and how her food is made.

In response to some family's concerns about the school's focus on nature, I can only say that I feel it is actually their main strength and gift to the kids. There is no religious bend of any kind, but an attention to and gratitude to the natural world around them. Be it a song to give thanks before a meal or season-related activities, kids are taught to appreciate nature and to take care of it. Every school day begins outside in the school garden whatever the weather and if the children are dressed appropriately, they enjoy being outside (teachers give parents specific instructions on clothing to make sure the children are comfortable). And they have a "day in the park" (at Grant Park) which is perfect for exploration and to get their energy out. Needless to say, knowledge of nature is important nowadays and this is also the right age for them to learn it. Later in adulthood, no fine for littering will prevent one from doing so, unless that awareness and love for nature is instilled from one's earliest...

DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD(REN) HERE!!!!!!! This place is SUCH a joke!!!! This school, if it can be actually called that, is filthy, peppered with dead bugs & sticky bug traps with dead stuck on bugs with a staff that is completely clueless on how to teach & work with children.

Upon first look what you a lead to see is a school that is VERY VERY new age in thought and claims to model their teaching style to the Waldorf Education model. Being an educator myself I have some familiarity with this type of education. It can best be describe as un-schooling. Sally Anne Hanson, the schools director, comes off as overly friendly and caring for both the parents and the child. However that quickly changes especially if you don't decide to run your family and handle your children the way that she thinks is best.

The preschool would have you to believe that the children are richly engaged by their classroom teachers and this is NOT the case. The children are left to play along with the silk scarves, bark chips, sticks, raw pieces of wood used for building blocks and a small wooden play kitchen. The teachers have very little interaction with the kids each day and take a very hands off approach. Your child will not learn anything education from this school letters, numbers and anything else found in a traditional classroom is nowhere to be found in this school

Each room also is set up with a season "alter" that the glorifies each season almost at the point of seasonal worship. My family and I found this to be VERY disturbing. Additionally at snack & meal time, the children say a prayer to the elements and ask them to bless their food. Again this is VERY disturbing because parents are explicitly told that this does NOT happen.

Aside from everything else that I have mentioned this school costs a small fortune!!! The breakdown is as follows:

$100 application fee $500 enrollment fee $200 supply fee $150 enrichment fee is charged if the adult members of the family do not donate 6+ hrs of time to the school each school year $500 per month for 4 days a week from 9:30-1:30 each day

The total for a child to attend here for one school year that runs Sep - May is close to $6000!!!!! Are you kidding me right now? In addition to this CRAZY cost each child must bring their own portion of the snack that is provided each day for the children and they must also bring their own lunch. If that doesn't blow your mind then just know, you are also not "allowed" to pack them whatever they want or like to eat as the school requires that each meal sent meet their protein and other nutritional standards. This includes no prepackaged food of any kind. If you haven't spent enough yet you are required to purchase a FULL SET of rain gear, house slippers and send them in clothing that is completely void of any characters, images or screen printing of any kind. If you don't send you child with these items everyday, you will be sent HOME to collect them and your child will not be accepted until the items are brought.

What really sealed the deal if everything else weren't enough when my husband was there for the schools "Tea with Teacher" event my husband was strong armed from attending to our son who was getting into something that he wasn't supposed to be in. The director Sally put her arm in front of my husband and told him that she would handle it!!! THIS IS NOT OK!!!! For a teacher / director to tell a parent that he was not allowed to handle a situation with his own child, something is horribly wrong here.

I could go on and on about this place but I think I have summed up most of the horrible parts of this school. I will mention that I was going to take a "teaching" position here and thankfully did not sign the contract before I was able to see what The Children't Garden was...

The Children's Garden Preschool is an icing on the cake perk for the sweet families that live in Grant Park. It's not just a school, it's a true community. Those families who make a longer drive for their child(ren) to attend this school can attest to the school's genuine respect for the whole well-being of the child.

I have three children who have been fortunate to spend their early "schooling" here. I put that word in parenthesis because the values and virtues that are taught and lived out in these classrooms are experienced quite differently than what one might experience at other schools. This gentle, quiet, rhythmic, grounded approach is what attracted my husband and I in the first place and is more than appropriate for children in their early years of life!

We are honored to now have our third child at The Children's Garden. And over the years, we have been diligent to attend the extra parent workshops and teacher meetings provided by the school. Each and every time we do, we are introduced to new and helpful insight as to how to guide our children through life's obstacles.

Currently, our oldest son, having graduated from The Children's Garden, is attending an academically rigorous local private school. He is doing very well, in fact, the work there is a breeze for him. I can thank The Children's Garden for their diligence in training my son's focus while he was there, leading to his ability to better attend to his work now.

The staff at the Children's Garden is properly prepared and educated in how to teach the values of safety, respect, gentleness, kindness, individuality and autonomy in a way that directly translates to little ones. The facility is magical to the children. And the simple food pleasures worked on every day enliven their senses and appreciation...