DayCare - Dare to Compare

We're considering two daycare centers in Ashburn

1. KinderCare (off Gloucester blvd near Ashburn Village Shopping center) 2. MinnieLand (off Ashburn Village Blvd near rt 7).

Does anyone have any experience with either of those centers?

 

BTW, she is 2 years old

 

My son attends the Kinderare in the Village although he is is in the kindergarten room. He's been there for about 3 years. We transferred him from Minnieland right after he turned 3. We have been very happy at Kindercare. The director is wonderful and really cares about the kids as do the teachers. The program seems a little more structured at Kindercare than at Minnieland. He was really bored at Minnieland and has been much more content at Kindercare. The kids learn but while having fun and there is plenty of time to just have fun too. Kinderare also has reading, math, music, Spanish, and science classes that you can enroll your child in for a fee as she gets older. The kids do lots of crafts and projects, especially when younger. During the summer there are additional activities like shows once a week (magician, music shows, etc...), sprinkler days for the little kids, and other simple fun activities like costume or pajama day. There are several parties such as start of summer, back to school, Christmas throughout the year and parents are encouraged to attend.
Hopefully Minnieland has improved since we left three years ago. I don't really know. We were getting fed up and things kept getting worse with the teachers and new director at that time. The kids weren't given enough things to keep busy. At one point our son was in trouble because he didn't sit down and watch Barney with the rest of the kids (no tv at Kindercare). The final straw was when he fell on the playground and dislocated his arm. He was almost 3 at the time and when he tried to explain to his teacher that his "hand" hurt they didn't check or do anything about it, just told him to go play. He figured out it didn't hurt as much if he didn't move it which is what he did until we picked him up several hours later. The teacher told us he wouldn't participate in any of the afternoon activities and hope that he listens better tomorrow when we picked him up. It only took us a minute to figure out something was seriously wrong with his arm when we picked him up and ended up in the emergency room for 6 hours. It took the doctors a long time to put his arm back in place because it had been out of place for so long. So as you can see our reasons for leaving were very much based on the staff and the diretor at that time. Maybe things have improved since then. You can look at the results of day care inspections by the state on the following site: http://www.dss.virginia.gov/facility/search/licensed.cgi . I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info. We looked at both places for a second time we had already made our decision (KinderCare) but it's nice to hear that we made the right decision.

 

Wow, that Minnieland experience sounded pretty bad. Anyone should know not to rely on what a 3 year old tells you about being hurt, you examine. I hope your son recovered well after this.