San Francisco, CA
A Child's Garden

Director's Comments

Question to director: Do you have any additional thoughts on what parents should consider when looking at your school? Is there any advice that you would like to provide to prospective parents?


Our goal is to nurture the development of the whole child physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually. Children's learning does not occur in narrowly defined subject areas but in an integrated process; an activity that stimulates one dimension of learning affects a broad spectrum of other learning areas as well. We are committed to providing an atmosphere, which encourages self-expression and creativity for each child while building self-esteem and independence. Our low child to teacher ratio and small group of children allow more individual attention and a closer personal relationship with the teachers.

Parents' Comments

Parent #1
This school is clearly loved by both the teachers and the children. I actually came upon A Child's Garden at a playground when they were out on one of their many daily outings. I asked one of the children what school they go to and a group of ACG's kids circled around me and my daughter and enthusiastically told us all about their school. I figured this was a good sign.
Month's later I enrolled my daughter. It did take me a while to understand and develop a good communication with the teacher as it was not clear to me in what form we would discuss my child's development (i.e. via e-mail, one-on-one...) I just learned that asking very casually and making myself at home was the most effective method.

Parent #2
Child's Garden is a fantastic preschool and my son has really thrived there. The director has created a wonderful, warm environment in which children can grow and learn. It is play-based, so children are able to follow their interests, but with enough structure that they learn how to listen, follow rules and develop new skills. They take a lot of field trips and usually visit a different local park every day.

Parent #3
My child did not do well in a highly structured, academic environment, because she was unable to sit still, and so I moved her to "A Child's Garden". She gets out nearly everyday to the park, kindergym, the library, the ballet, museums etc. She has learnt more from these daily trips than from any other care situation she has been in. Every day she has art projects and paintings to show me and is very excited about her experiences. The kids have a predictable daily routine in which the children are offered a choice of activities. She gets a lot of attention in a very small group of children who have now all become her close friends.

Parent #4
I have two boys at this school and they have been there for 1 1/2 years now. We really like the school. They go on a trip to a park 4-5 days a week. They also go to Kindergym, trips to the library, china town, chabot space ctr, Elkus ranch, the velveteen rabbit and more. There is a maximum of 12 children and there is usually around 8-10 kids day. I looked at many preschools and this one was the only one where they went out (off property) to different parks to play almost every day. The school is play based learning and my children learn about planet's one week by painting art projects, posters and books on planets and a trip to Chabot. The next week is chinese new year and they will go to china town and make chinese dragons from egg shell boxes. I am surprised and thrilled about how my children learn even though it's thru play and not a structured curriculum. For us it's perfect and provides what we wanted for our kids at preschool age.

The school is small so my oldest son doesn' t have as many boys his age as he would like, but he loves all the kids at school and plays with all ages so I see this as a small minus. He will have plenty of time at kindergarten to branch out.

Parent #5
providing activities that interest the children. The biggest weakness is that the children have no bounderies and I feel like the children run the school.

Parent #6
This is an excellent school - play-based with just enough structure. Lots of daily exercise for the kids. Positive discipline. Our daughter just flourished here!

Parent #7
On first glance this seems like a very active and robust program, but we have found it to be totally chaotic with no structure at all. Some structure for children is important - and even free play in most environments have supervision of some sorts. If your child needs one-on-one time, or wants to practice communicating with others this is not the school for you. It feels more like babysitting and not preparing for K or for maturity. It makes us sad to come to this conclusion especially since its an established school.

Parent #8
It's strength is its weakness: This is a very laid-back school with tons of activities. The teachers are very flexible with how issues are handled. For example, I was concerned with separation anxiety when my son started. On the one hand, they had almost no suggestions for me. That was frustrating. But on the other hand, when I came up with a plan, they completely supported me. They have a van to put all the kids into to take them on field trips. This van is the envy of all the home-based preschools, apparently. My son's first day of school was a trip to the zoo. They take the kids to Kindergym on Wednesdays, too.

Montessori? Waldorf? Play-based?

What school type is right for your child? Is one model better than another? What does the research say?

View an example from the Savvy Source guide to learn more.

Trace around your child's foot, with shoe on, on a piece of white construction paper or card stock. Have child cut out the shoe print and add a spooky face. Glue it to a popsicle stick and you have a ghost stick puppet!

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