What the day contains
Kindergarten readiness
Managing a coat, a lunch, a toilet, a queue and six hours away from home. Reading is not on this list and does not need to be.
Readiness is the most anxiously searched term in early education and the most misdescribed. Ask a kindergarten teacher in this borough what makes September go well and you will not hear about letters, and ask a preschool's advertising and you will hear about very little else.
Diego runs the pre-kindergarten room and also runs the after-school hours, which means the children who leave in June come back the following September at half past three still in the uniform. That is an unusually direct feedback loop and it has shaped this page.
The actual list
Managing a coat, a bag, a lunch and a toilet without an adult doing it. Not perfectly — a five-year-old will still get a zip wrong — but attempting it as their own job rather than waiting for somebody.
Waiting, queueing, sitting in a group for a while and getting up again without a scene. Separating at a door and recovering within a few minutes rather than an hour.
And asking an adult for help, which is the single most useful thing on the list and the least obvious. A child who will put their hand up and say they do not understand has a completely different school year from one who will not, regardless of what either of them knows.
Stamina, which nobody mentions
Six hours is a long day for a five-year-old, and a child who is exhausted by eleven cannot access anything else on the list however capable they are.
It is built by having long days — which children in full-day nursery already have — and by not being carried through them. A four-year-old who has walked to the park, carried their own bag and managed their own lunch for a year arrives in September with something a shorter, gentler programme does not build.
This is one of the genuine advantages of full-day care over a half-day programme in the final year, and it is worth weighing honestly against the fact that a free half-day place costs nothing.
What we send, and what we do not
A written summary each spring: what your child can do, what they find hard, what helps. In plain language, for you and for the school, describing what we actually observed.
Not a score. We do not rank children against a scale, publish a readiness percentage or issue a certificate, because a nursery scoring its own output against its own criteria is marking its own work.
And we will talk about which school honestly, including when the honest answer is that we do not know your local school and you should ask parents who do. We have no relationships to protect.
The thing families ask for that we decline
Letters, drills and worksheets, which is the most common request and has its own page. The short version: a four-year-old who can do the practical list and cannot read is ready; one who can read and cannot do the list is not, and only one of those is being sold to you.
Children reaching for print get everything we have. The distinction is who is initiating, and it is the whole distinction.
If your child is three or four, the City may do this for nothing. New York City gives every resident three- and four-year-old a free, full-day place in 3-K or Pre-K for All, regardless of family income or immigration status. For the 2026-2027 year that meant children born in 2023 for 3-K and 2022 for pre-K, with applications open from 14 January to 27 February 2026. We are raising this before we quote you a weekly rate, on the pages where you are most likely to be about to pay us, because a family paying for a four-year-old's daytime hours without having applied is usually spending money the City would have covered. Families still pay us for these ages for good reasons — hours beyond what a free place covers, or not getting one — and neither of those is a reason to leave the question unasked.
Included as standard
What is included
Independence built as their own job
Coats, bags, lunches and the washroom, reachable and managed by the child.
Practice at waiting and queueing
Genuinely difficult, genuinely learnable, and not taught by being told.
Asking an adult for help
The most useful item on the list and the least obvious. Practised deliberately.
Stamina from full, unassisted days
Walking to the park, carrying their own bag, managing their own lunch.
A written spring summary
What we observed, in plain language, for you and for the school.
No score, percentage or certificate
A nursery scoring its own output against its own criteria is marking its own work.
An honest conversation about schools
Including when the answer is that we do not know yours and you should ask parents who do.
No drills, worksheets or tutoring
With a published argument for why, which we will not change on request.
When to make an appointment
Signs this is worth an assessment
- Your child starts kindergarten next September.
- You have been told they should be reading by now and it did not sound right.
- You want a summary for the school that describes your child rather than ranks them.
- You are weighing a free half-day pre-K place against a full day here.
- You want somebody who finds out how September actually went.
- You want the practical list taken as seriously as the academic one.
Kindergarten readiness — what it costs
- A written summary goes home each spring for every child leaving for kindergarten, and it says what we actually observed rather than scoring your child against a scale we invented.Included
Every rate on this site is published in full on the tuition page, including the ones that make us look expensive. Meals, snacks, nappy changing, settling-in sessions and the whole curriculum are inside the weekly fee — there is no premium tier and no outside provider invoicing you separately for a music class. The two charges that are not in the weekly fee are registration, at $75 a year per family rather than per child, and late collection after 6:15pm at $1 a minute, which goes to the two members of staff who stayed. If your child is three or four, read the 3-K page before you read this one.
Questions we are actually asked
Kindergarten readiness — frequently asked
What does kindergarten readiness actually mean?
Managing a coat, a bag, a lunch and a toilet as their own job; waiting and queueing; separating at a door and recovering; lasting six hours; and asking an adult for help. That last one is the most useful and the least obvious — a child who will say they do not understand has a different year from one who will not.
Should my child be reading before kindergarten?
No, and the pressure to think otherwise is commercial. A four-year-old who can do the practical list and cannot read is ready. One who can read and cannot do the list is not. There is a full page on why we decline to teach reading before five.
What will you send to the school?
A written summary each spring in plain language: what your child can do, what they find hard, and what helps. Not a score, not a percentage and not a certificate — a nursery ranking children against its own criteria is marking its own work.
Is a full day better than a free half-day pre-K place?
For stamina specifically, a full day builds something a shorter programme does not. That is a genuine advantage and it should be weighed honestly against the fact that a free place costs nothing, which is why our 3-K page comes before our tuition page.
How do you know your approach works?
Because Diego runs both the pre-kindergarten room and the after-school hours, so the children who leave in June come back the following September still in the uniform. That is a more direct feedback loop than most nurseries have, and it is what shaped this page.
Related programmes
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Pre-kindergarten
The year before school starts. Mostly about being able to manage a day away from you, and much less about letters than the brochures suggest.
$345 / week
Play-based learning
The approach with the best evidence behind it for children under five, and the one that photographs worst. We chose it anyway.
Included
Social & emotional
Sharing, waiting, losing, apologising and calming down. The hardest curriculum in the building and the one that predicts school the best.
Included
Before & after school
The two hours at each end of a school day that decide whether a parent can hold a full-time job.
$185 / weekTuesday and Thursday mornings, while the children are here
Come and see the room
A tour here happens during a session, in the room your child would actually be in, at the time of day they would be in it. You meet the person who leads that room rather than only the director, and you see the noise and the mess that are genuinely there. It takes an hour. If your child is three or four we will ask whether you have applied for free 3-K or Pre-K for All before we quote you a rate, because a good many families should not be paying us at all.