Our daughter went here from when she was 2.5 to 5 (she just graduated)! I am an educator myself and I've never met such a caring group of teachers. My daughter loved every one of them. All of my daughter's teachers have been there since the founding of the school--so very little turnover. That tells you about the kind of community they've created there. The teachers go out of their way to be communicative (they write a daily journal to parents), make meaningful activities for them (sometimes, I can't believe the artwork that comes home with her--they get messy with kids in a great way--toddlers take off their shoes and paint, they bring snow in to play with, and experiment with bubbles, baking soda/vinegar, dirt, etc.), but miraculously, she comes home clean. And they really care for children's feelings and well being (they give extensive written reports about your kid's growth). As educators, we appreciate the variety of educational materials they offer to children (their school has a Japanese language library where kids and borrow books and take them home), they have lots of educational toys to entertain them, they regularly go the park and not only let the kids run around and play, but plan for things like sledding when there's snow, and they do field trips (like to Beaver Brook or the fire station).
In terms of language, this school is a wonderful school to learn Japanese for this age group. The teachers actually communicate with each other in Japanese (not true of all bilingual schools!), mainly speak to the children in Japanese (they are immersed), and surround them with cultural events (they celebrate all kinds of Japanese holidays, plus even have introduced the kids to tea ceremony), and activities like origami and calligraphy. This was the immersion we were looking for. Our kiddo only recently learned English through speaking with her friends.
As I said before, they are also wonderful with establishing community. They have multiple events during the year for families, and special events. For example, they have family picnics during the summer, family breakfasts, and have also hosted artists on the weekend (additional event!) for the entire family. The graduation is also quite a production for a preschool (they rent out a church) and kids feel so special to be celebrated. Kids also are always invited to the teachers' choir performance, which is another event that our kids looks forward to. We are getting ready to send our son to the school as well, and are excited for his experiences there.
Lastly, I'll say that finding this school when we did was a so lucky. We specifically wanted a Japanese bilingual school (we drive more than 20 minutes each way to bring our kids there). Our daughter actually started at another more established Japanese bilingual school and had a terrible experience there (huge turnover of teachers within a short time period, and they had issues with classroom management). Cedar Hill opened just around the time that we wanted to change schools. read more