Stanley Knowles Pre-school Center Inc. opened its doors February 13, 1989.
We are located right inside Ecole Stanley Knowles School, which is a dual track school for Nursery to Grade 8, which allows us to walk our children through the hallways to their Nursery and Kindergarten classrooms. Thus, providing us the opportunity to see our students for many years in the school hallways, once they move on from the preschool center, till they graduate grade 8.
We are fortunate to have our backyard play space directly off our back door, so parents don’t have to go far to pick up their children when we are outside. Our backyard has a toddler play structure, which is great for our young children between the ages of 20 months to 5 years of age. We have a hill, sand pit with boulders, logs, and a bamboo play hut for the older children and any who want to explore the heavy lifting and pushing of the logs. In the spring we plant fruits and vegetables in our garden for the children to learn about sustainability, and to experience growing and eating fresh food from a garden. We have a Pergola over our sandbox to provide some shade, an outdoor kitchen, a butterfly garden with a grape vine growing through our fence providing privacy along with a beautiful natural backdrop for our play space.
On those rainy days and spring melts we have muddy buddies for the children to wear to keep their clothes clean and dry but can get as messy as they want while wearing them. We have a saying here that if we are not messy, we are not having fun!
Our center is centrally located around 6 parks we can walk to and explore, especially for our older children, to expand their senses. Walking outdoors opens all your senses, hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and even tasting if we pass an edible plant along the way. It’s also a great time to sing while you’re walking or do scavenger hunts along the way, to make the walk that much more enjoyable.