Without exaggeration, Happy Panda is my dream daycare. If I had known how incredible it would be, I would have spared myself the time visiting other daycares, including the commercial ones. My son has attended Happy Panda since he was 5 months old and he is now 4. It’s been astounding to watch him grow and thrive beyond any expectations I could have ever had. If Helen developed a school until my son was ready for college, I would enroll him in a heartbeat. In no particular order, here are the things I am constantly raving about: PERSONALIZED PROGRAMMING: Helen truly invests in each individual kid, supporting their growth and development holistically, and at their own pace. My kiddo started recognizing the alphabet and numbers when he was still one, just because he found it to be fun when he saw the other kids doing it. CONTINUOUS TRAINING: Helen is an expert in the field and often invited to speak at city-sponsored early childhood training events. And when she isn’t working with the kids, she attends various trainings in the evenings and weekends, and passes on her research to her staff. She introduced me to the concept of time-based learning and I’ve loved it! DELICIOUS, QUALITY FOOD: Helen plans an amazing menu, full of freshly-made and delicious food. She accommodates everyone’s diets, while also having the kids enjoy eating communally. My kid has a rich and diverse diet at Helen’s. He loves ALL fruits, broccoli, seaweed, carrots, spinach, soup. Credit to Helen: I’ve never had to sneak fruits and veggies into my son’s diet. BEAUTIFUL, SAFE ENVIRONMENT: Never has my kiddo had so much as a diaper rash under Helen’s expert care. The quality of the environment is on par with the best. Her furniture is from Lakeshore — exceptionally well-made with little kiddos in mind. No IKEA hacks here. And Helen makes learning to clean up fun! She helped direct his natural cleaning energies into a fun and structured focus. DIVERSITY IN AGES AND BACKGROUNDS: One of the surprises about a smaller daycare is the amount of interaction among the age groups. My son has a little family of older and younger “siblings.” He learned quickly how to be gentle with babies, play up with older kids, and play down with younger kids. Watching him instinctively reach to hold hands with other little ones when they happen to arrive/depart school at the same time melts my heart every single time. And Helen does a phenomenal job of reflecting the demographics of our city. It’s like walking into a dream society every time. This early environment is invaluable beyond words because this will the normal he carries with him later in life. CREATIVE ARTS & CRAFTS: I’ve often told Helen that she should create a YouTube channel of her ideas. She combines fun and STEM into all the fine motor skill activities. My son’s arts and crafts creations take up an entire wall of the house and that’s probably only half that he’s made. And he’s so proud of all of it! OUTDOOR TIME AND FIELD TRIPS: The kids get tons of outdoor enrichment. They gets tons of playtime for all their wiggles, but they also get to help with planting, gardening, sweeping, bird-feeding, insect identification. And there’s the fun field trips, like pumpkin patches and Easter egg hunts. CLEAR COMMUNICATION: Few things are as nerve-wracking as dropping off your baby into a stranger’s care for an entire day. Helen does eases that anxiety. When my son was a baby, she gave me a sheet at the end of each day about his nap schedule, feeding schedule, and any other notes. At pickup, she shared with me his day: what made him happy, fussy, curious. And there are always pictures. It’s impressive how well she captures their days! And she is amazingly responsive via text. Sometimes things come up, or you forgot to mention/pack something. Whatever it is, you can always be sure that Helen will respond promptly. My son is full of joy and thriving. And he loves his teachers, especially Teacher Helen. She doesn’t frequently have openings, but if she does, I would sprint to grab it.