Touring a daycare is one of the most important steps to take when picking a place to trust with your child. Tours allow you to get a feel for the facility, the teachers, and let you see what your child will experience every day.
Tours are a pretty common practice, for daycare facilities, but many parents don’t know what they should be looking for. Here is what you should keep an eye out for when on a daycare tour to make sure you leave no stone unturned and find the best daycare for you!
How flexible is the tour signup?
The first thing you should pay attention to happens before you even go on the tour. Many daycare facilities have very specific times and days that they will give a tour. The reason for this is that they want to give you the best first impression possible and will pick times where kids are napping or doing an activity. If a daycare facility isn’t willing to be a little flexible with the times you can come to visit, you know that they might be trying to only show their good side.
Here at Cornerstone, we give tours without a signup, and we are the only daycare center in Kenosha that does that. If you want to go on a tour, you can either give us a call to let us know you are coming (which we still appreciate), or you can just show up and we will show you around! We have nothing to hide and want you to get a real understanding of what your child will be seeing every day!
When you arrive, is it easy to get in?
Security is one of the most important things you should be looking for while taking a tour. When you arrive, can you walk right in? If so, you know that the facility is nowhere near secure enough. It is a weird thing to say, but the harder it is to come take your tour, the better it might be. If a daycare facility has security checks for adults picking up, you know that you can feel safe leaving your child there every day.
We take many of those security steps here at cornerstone as security is our #1 priority!
When looking at the different rooms, look at the walls.
You are going to see many things while on your tour, but one thing you need to be sure to look at is the walls for what projects the kids have been working on. By looking at the walls, you will see all the fun activities kids have been doing and get a good understanding of how your child will be learning and having fun!
If a child is being fussy, how do the teachers handle it?
Another important thing that many parents forgot to look at are the teachers, specifically, teachers that might be handling fussy kids. Even the happiest little one is going to have their moments, so it’s important to know that they will be cared for in those moments. You may or may not be able to catch one of these moments on your tour, but if you do, it is very telling.
Also, pay attention to how the teachers react when they see a tour is coming. Many times, teachers are warned ahead of time that a tour is happening and will adjust accordingly. Try to read the nonverbals and see if you are getting a real view of the room.
How do they respond to your “silly” questions?
Once you start at a daycare, communication with the staff and director is so crucial to making sure that you and your child have a positive experience. How can you tell that communication will be good? By the responses you get to your questions on the tour.
No matter what the question is, the daycare director should be happy to answer it. Remember, there are no silly questions on a daycare tour. If the director or person giving the tour makes you feel uncomfortable or silly for asking a simple question, how are they going to respond when you have a problem or concern about your child?
We have been asked every question you could possibly think of during the thousands of daycare tours we’ve given at Cornerstone. Even if a question feels a little silly to you, we know that you are just trying to get the most information possible! So please ask away!
We LOVE giving tours of our daycare facility can’t wait to show you around!
There are many ways you can tour our facility
- Just stop by! We can give you a tour any time
- If you would feel more comfortable scheduling something in advance, contact us and we will set up a time!
- Want to see our daycare from home? Check out our virtual tour!
Please feel free to send us any questions you may have about touring our daycare here in Kenosha! We also have a couple of other articles that you may find helpful such as 5 Steps to Picking a Daycare and 5 Signs of a Childproofed Daycare!
