Brookline Pre-Kare, Brookline

What can I say about Kimberly and Brookline PreKare, that Natasha (previous post) hasn't already said? It really is as wonderful as she says! Kimberly is a thoughtful, responsive, engaging and warm educator. She listens to the kids while helping them expand their interests, seemlessly weaving in learning thru play and exploration. Her experience is obvious as soon as your walk in the classroom and are greeted by a calm environment, where kids of very different ages, and even languages, are engaged and connected with eachother. And like Natasha said, I've never seen Kimberly look flustered or lose her cool. I always feel a little awkward when I give a referral for Kimberly because I only have wonderful things to share and I worry I won't seem balanced in my review. But, the truth is, we have had only positive experiences here. So much so, that when our older daughter graduated, we wanted to put out son (who was only 1year at the time) on the wait list so that he could start immediately at 2.9 years. He is now 3 years old and can't wait to go to PreKare every morning! You can't get a better endorsement than that!

Personally, of all the preschool experiences I've had since having children, this one beats all. Kimberly Murphy, the owner & teacher of Brookline PreKare, encompasses everything you would ever want in a preschool teacher. She is kind, loving, attentive, patient and an incredible listener. Perhaps a little easier to do as she only takes care of a maximum of 6 children. Her website (https://www.myhaikuclass.com/kmurphy/brooklinepre-kare/cms_page/view) talks more about her rich experiences and her teaching philosophy, but the most important thing is that she creates an incredibly safe environment for kids where they feel heard, and comfortable expressing themselves. She brings out the best in our shy little girl who used to not be able to even say hi to her prior teachers. With Kimberly she easily expresses herself and Kimberly listens to her interests and and provides the framework and structure for her to dig deeper into their learning and interests which makes school a very fun place to go to for our little girl now, where learning is fun and interesting. In addition to interest-led learning Kimberly cues into where each child is in their learning of math and literacy and challenges them further from where they are at. Our little daughter often surprises me now by writing or adding numbers that I had no idea she could do. In addition to all this individual customized but fun learning she also introduces the children to themes such as sounds, sights, etc. and helps them really dig deep into learning these topics in the most palpable ways possible. For example for sounds, the children make phones with cups on strings, they made glass xylophones and compose their own music following color charts (she had each glass filled with a different color water), read the book "listening walk," draw watercolor paintings while listening to classical music, and many many more activities. If you have gotten to this part, please know that Kimberly is a gem, she will enrich your child's childhood and you will have wished that all your children, maybe even yourself ;), had gone through her preschool. I would like to also add, that despite the challenges of dealing with kids, Kimberly never ever looses her cool. Our main problem with our daughter's last preschool was an environment where children were over-disciplined and teacher's overworked and high-strung. Kimberly emanates peace and calm and remains so after the doors are closed based on every single report coming from our little daughter and parents I've talked to.