Joyful Kids Academy

Both my husband and I love Joyful Kids; and my son truly enjoys the time here. We would like to share more about our appreciation for the wonderful program, director (Ms. Lorie), and teachers. - Language Explore. One of the reasons we choose Joyful Kids is exposing our son to more Mandarin Chinese outside of our house (my husband speaks English and I speak Chinese to our son). Now, our son is fluent in both English and Chinese. In addition, the school introduced a third language, Spanish, to the children and my son is learning. It's very impressive to hear the new vocabulary and words when he comes home. - Nutritious Food. The school provides both breakfast and lunch, including two afternoon snacks. Not only is all the food organic and home-cooking, but also the director asked parents to volunteer children's favorite recipes; therefore, all children there are exploring a variety of foods from different cultures. - Positive Discipline. Instead of criticizing improper behaviors, both the teachers and the director are reinforcing and redirecting children into good manners. One time, my son had a really bad melt-down, the director didn't discipline him; instead, a) she redirected my son to a quieter area in the classroom; b) she told my son it's okay to have a bad day, but he needed to calm down; c) she left my son alone, giving him space and letting him practice and build up his ability to engage in self-control. - Individual Interest. Both the teachers and the director respect children's individual interest and their personalities. Last year, my son really enjoyed different arts and crafts, so the teachers introduced a lot of creative ideas to him. Our house is full of his projects from school, paintings, arts, crafts and even some random drawing. This year, my son is interested in legos, so the teachers give him enough time to play with legos with his friends, encouraging his imagination. - Monthly Theme. Based on a monthly theme, the curriculum and classroom change each month. For example, last month (March) was Spring theme and this month (April) is Easter-related. For last month, the classroom was decorated with flowers, butterflies, trees (all were children's art projects); and their writings or drawings were all spring-related. For this month, everything is related to Easter bunnies and eggs. - Creative Curriculum. Since it's a bilingual preschool, the school has creative curriculum both in English and Chinese. For my son who's starting TK program this August, he can write his name, alphabet, numbers; he knows at least 50 Chinese characters (learned all from school); he can do addition and subtraction up to ten now; he's even able to pronounce many words he doesn't know (learning phonics too!). - Prompt Reporting. Routinely, we get our son's daily report through an App called HiMama, including breakfast, lunch, nap, and activities. However, if my son gets hurt from accident, especially anything related to face or head, we would get a call from the director right away; then in the afternoon, we would get a written accident report when we pick him up. - Decent Rate. After searching over 10 preschools around Dublin and Pleasanton area, Joyful Kids charge really decent tuition rate for their variety of programs, nutritious food, learning environment, caring and loving teachers. Joyful Kids has welcoming, caring, and helpful teachers and director. The program gives us the peace of mind and joy that my son is having fun and learning many things. Now he's very excited to start his TK program this August. My husband and I feel so confident that he will do very well in his new program because Joyful Kids prepared him. For your reference, this is the only preschool my son attends, starting from January of 2016 (when he's 3 years old) till now; and we are going to send his younger brother here too even though it's kind of far from our house.