We are incredibly grateful for the care and education our daughter received from Claudia…read more One of the biggest improvements we saw was in her English. When she first started, she faced a language barrier, but with Claudia's patience, encouragement, and support, she gained confidence and made remarkable progress. She also learned advanced math concepts that gave her a strong foundation and boosted her confidence when she entered school. Claudia is a very caring, patient, and dedicated caregiver. Not only is she wonderful with children, but she is also excellent at communicating with parents. Claudia always kept us informed, and we felt completely comfortable in her care every day. Another thing we appreciated was the variety of activities Claudia organized. I can see her students were always engaged, happy, and excited to participate. The daycare also created a wonderful sense of community--we made lasting friendships with other parents, which has been an amazing bonus for our family. We highly recommend Claudia to any family looking for a nurturing, educational, and supportive daycare environment.

Are you looking to give your child the best start in life?…read more I highly recommend Play Academy. Teacher Claudia understands that when it comes to your child's education, only the best will do. That is why she provides a holistic approach that brings together rigorous academics and engaging activities for children. My son is attending Play Academy and he is learning a lot. He is doing an excellent job learning social-emotional skills, English, expressing herself, motor skills, kindergarten readiness, and self-help skills. He is very happy going to school and he exceeded state standards. Please contact Play Academy today by scheduling a tour.

There aren't enough stars to recommend this school highly enough. The quality of education my…read moredaughter has received, and the social/emotional growth she has achieved would not have been possible elsewhere. Virginie, Audrey and Karin are outstanding teachers. They are caring, thoughtful, respectful, hard working (so so so hard working!!) and model all the qualities that we want our daughter to learn about. They really do see who the kids are as individuals, and are then able to tailor their approach to provide what each child needs to grow and learn. My daughter couldn't be happier to be at Les Lilas each day, and she has a love of learning and working that I never thought I would see at her young age. And on the academic side of things, I don't really know where to begin -- again I have to say they are top notch. My daughter is in the preschool age group, but she is already learning reading skills, printing/cursive, and doing math, science and art in a way I've never seen other schools attempt. And she's doing it in both English and French. She has progressed in French by leaps and bounds compared to when she started at Les Lilas. We never really grasped what she was capable of, until her teachers showed us what she can do. Overall, I think the standout feature of this school is the teachers. The amount of thought they put into their work with each child is beyond comprehension. They make it look so easy. And they always make it fun to be at school -- the kids never want to leave when it's time for parents to come pick them up! It is truly a close community of children and families who care. Love love love this school!! It was the easiest and best decision we ever made.

I have been a student of Virginie's since I was 4. She has been an amazing teacher. She has made…read morelearning the French language fun!-Lydia G, age 11

My son has been in this school for almost a year now. My experience so far has been really good. My…read moreson has learned many mandarin words, learned to clean up, learned to play with others.The teachers are caring. Her main teacher has a master degree in education. The director has been really nice and supportive.

Very scary my child was yelled at there by director. This is scary for small children I saw it at…read morepickup and it made me sad.

We love this preschool, all three of our kids have had a wonderful experience here. My oldest son…read morewent here in 2012 when it was at a different location and Caroline was his teacher, when my second was ready for school in 2015, I put him in this bilingual preschool as well. Now my youngest daughter is attending this preschool, she is enrolled in the Chinese and English and her Chinese has significantly improved. We don't speak Chinese at home and because the school has sparked a curiosity in her, she requests Chinese words throughout the day and asks, "how do you say this in Chinese?" We were at a preschool before whose values did not align with our early learning philosophy. That school had wanted to teach every child exactly the same and ignore the needs of the child's developmental stage. We wanted a preschool that deepened our child's love for learning while treating them each as individuals and Language Garden does both. We feel so blessed to have found them. It's been over a year for my daughter and the teachers in both Chinese and English classrooms have been the same which helps build that stability a child needs to thrive. I highly recommend them!

TL;DR: We found the owners extremely inflexible, unreceptive to parent feedback, and rigid about…read more"school policy," even when those policies weren't clearly communicated. The school made a great impression during our tour, and our son's homeroom teacher, Ms. Chloe, was wonderful. Unfortunately, our experience with the owners/administration was terrible. I originally considered giving one star, but reconsidered solely because of Ms. Chloe. (More below) During our tour with the owner, Catherine, I was genuinely impressed. She knew the children by name and remembered details about their development, and I loved that she had 35+ years of childcare experience. We were also excited that the toddler teacher, Ms. Chloe had Montessori training and experience, and that the school is dual language Mandarin & English. During the tour, we saw teachers preparing what appeared to be homemade seaweed soup and other homemade food, and we were specifically told that if we sent food from home, it would be heated before serving to our child. Unfortunately, after enrolling, our son barely ate his school lunches, and the leftovers coming home provided by the school were frequently things like hot dogs and hamburgers, chicken nuggets. We started sending homemade meals instead that he would usually eat, such as stir fry and dumplings but unfortunately he continued to not eat much of his lunch. Six months later, we learned the school actually had a policy against reheating food from home. Our son started in December, and we didn't learn this until June by a new teacher. I wonder when we would have found out otherwise. This policy wasn't in the parent handbook we received and contradicted what we were told during our tour. For months, we were sending food expecting it to be warmed without realizing our son was being offered it cold. No wonder why he wasn't eating. For something as basic and important as whether our child was eating during the day, this was incredibly appalling. We also found the school extremely inflexible with scheduling. We paid for three days per week, but couldn't switch days or make up days missed due to illness or other situations. For example, if our schedule was M/W/F and we needed M/W/Th one week, Thursday required an additional payment even if our son didn't attend Friday. I understand that daycares need predictable staffing and policies, but there seemed to be very little flexibility. If we are paying for 3 days and they are saving the spot for my son, why does it matter which 3 days of the week? Another frustration was the administration's response to parent feedback. The school uses Brightwheel for communication, billing, and daily updates, but photos are uploaded separately to Flickr. Photos from the entire school are posted together, usually a day or two later, meaning I had to scroll through hundreds of photos just to find a few of my son. I repeatedly asked if photos could at least be organized by classroom so parents could easily see their own child's class. The request was repeatedly rejected because of "school policy." I also wasn't comfortable with every other parent or grandparent of the school having access to photos of my child. Eventually, I stopped checking Flickr because I simply didn't have time to scroll through 400+ photos. The best part of our experience was Ms. Chloe. She genuinely cared about our son, shared stories about his day, and made us feel like she really knew him. We also saw significant improvement in both his English and Chinese vocabulary during his time at Language Garden. Most importantly, he felt safe and comfortable with her. During the months when drop-off was difficult, we always felt relieved when Ms. Chloe was there to receive him. There are caring teachers here, and the school made an excellent first impression. Unfortunately, the gap between what we expected from our tour and what we experienced--particularly around food, scheduling, communication, and the administration's receptiveness to parent feedback--ultimately left us very disappointed. PS: my son's new daycare posts photos of him DAILY in brightwheel itself. Clearly it's possible. AND we still drop him 3 days a week, and they don't require a set schedule. We just drop him any 3 days and they are fine. That's what we should be paying for! I have done many daycare tours at this point, and am happy to share my experience with various daycares in the Eastside that may be a better fit, if anyone parents would like to reach out. Best of luck!

Our son has been working with Mary for close to 5 months and it's been very impactful. His grades…read morehave improved significantly and more importantly there's consistency in his performance. She's very supportive, will make time (with planning) ahead of tests, encourage him to push himself beyond and he's very proud of his improvement. All of this combined has impacted my son's confidence and attitude in Spanish greatly. I couldn't recommend her enough. Thank you, Mary!

Mary was my Spanish tutor for 3 months before my recent visit to Mexico. She prepared me well! She…read moreis very personable and I always looked forward to my weekly classes!

My kid graduated recently in Reading (now 5th grade) Kumon From Pinelake center. we started our…read moreclasses here when my kid was in 3rd grade. We are very happy with the performance and the achievement for completion of all levels in Reading Kumon. Meetu sachdeva was the instructor Who guided us from starting. She is very communicative and helped us always. She is available for our questions and emails all the times.she makes sure that work is covered for all weekdays. She even plan ahead for holidays also. we are happy working with her.

We are happy with the Reading and vocabulary improvement. Staff is helpful at the Pine lake center.read more

My daughter and son both love going to these classes. Super small student ratio so they're learning…read morereally fast. Flexible as well.

I strongly advise parents to think twice before sending their children to this school. Our…read moreexperience has been filled with severe safety oversights, poor academic planning, and a complete lack of teacher accountability. Severe Safety Concerns: The school utilizes its own forest area, but supervision is shockingly poor. My child was lost in it multiple times. In one incredibly negligent incident, a teacher completely walked away from the group without even realizing my child was left behind. Substandard & Unlicensed Staff: We found out that multiple teachers on staff do not even hold proper teaching licenses. The English instruction is highly unprofessional; the teacher struggles with basic verb tenses and passes these grammatical errors and incorrect English habits onto the students. Disorganized Curriculum: The academic planning is entirely backward. The principal pushed the curriculum into multiplication before the students had even mastered basic subtraction. Because of this structural failure, my children were left severely behind in math when they finally transferred to a different school. Lack of Care & Blame Culture: The staff consistently shifts blame onto the children instead of taking responsibility. When the kids complained about being freezing cold outside, teachers dismissed them and blamed them for "not wearing enough layers." In art class, teachers stand by while students' clothes are ruined with paint, later claiming it is the child's fault for not wearing a poncho. I have had to throw away numerous pieces of ruined clothing.

Our son was at IFS for 3 years. A few key takeaway from our experience (and why we will enroll our…read moredaughter in the next couple years when she is ready: 1. Mandarin immersion school I think of it as going to school, but you go the extra bonus of Mandarin language (with all benefit that come with growing up as bilingual child). One can argue their preference of home based daycare, regular daycare, or school. I personally prefer school (compared to daycare) to have less students turnover, more organized activity (no one come at 9.30, 10am, and 10.30 - which break the focus of the activity), and better curriculum. 2. Reggio Emilia/Project based learning I prefer not to focus too much on academic for kids under 5. There will be time for that later on. I believe that should not be the focus for 3 years old child. Project based learning allow children to play while learn. 3. Outdoor space They do not stay at "sterile" room. The school intentionally allow students to explore and play with nature. Our son (5 years old in non Mandarin speaking household) received a lot of praise from native speaker during our trip to Taiwan that he spoke fluent Mandarin. During our time here, we enjoyed all of his teachers. We are aware of some turnover impacting some other students, but at the end of the day, some of them are out of school's control. We definitely sad that we have to leave IFS family as our son was accepted at Jing Mei. Otherwise, IFS is a strong candidate for our son's continued education.