<p>We did find a few that are very reasonably priced, though they involve less actual preschool time and certainly less fancy facilities, but that doesn’t really matter to us (we know our daughter won’t know the difference). We just figured we’d try for financial aid at the more expensive ones, particularly because one (the one I visited so far) is part of a larger private elementary school that’s really lovely. We also did find one like someone above mentioned – running a preschool as part of a high school curriculum. That one isn’t too expensive.</p>
<p>Some universities that offer early childhood development degrees run preschools on their campuses.</p>
<p>I thought I’d just give an update.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted to the extremely expensive preschool, but unfortunately the financial aid wasn’t sufficient; they give most of their financial aid to the older children in grades 1-6. We are still keeping it in mind for the future in case our finances improve (a lot :p) though… we were really impressed with the school, the admissions people, the teachers, and the students’ parents.</p>
<p>Instead, we found a much less expensive preschool that nonetheless seems good for us. For instance, it has very low teacher turnover even though it’s not nearly as “fancy” as the other preschool, and it emphasizes the social/play side. When I went in to check it out, I brought my daughter with me, and it was hard to get her out of there – she wanted to join in on the fun. She keeps saying, “I want to go to preschool!”</p>
<p>Sounds like a great choice. The number one indicator of “fit” is how well the child enjoys it. After all, its preschool - not Harvard.</p>
<p>The Montessori mentions made me smile at an old memory. My son’s first report card was from a Monetssori school when he was two and it reported that Michael likes to cut bananas. Best report card ever.</p>
<p>^yeah, both my kids went to montessori up through 5th grade. i always found it amusing to read the teacher recs and report cards they sent to the middle schools they applied to. Of course, if the middle school wasn’t familar with montessori it could have backfired.</p>
<p>Just read this, and thought of this thread:</p>
<p>[Mom</a> Sues Preschool For Failing To Prep Tot For Harvard - The Consumerist](<a href=“http://consumerist.com/2011/03/mother-sues-preschool-because-kid-might-not-get-into-harvard.html]Mom”>Mom Sues Preschool For Failing To Prep Tot For Harvard – Consumerist)</p>
<p>The mom of preschooler sued her kid’s preschool for 19,000 saying it didn’t prepare her kid for Harvard.</p>
<p>I never went to pre school so I really can’t advise you on how to pick one. My little cousins son has been going to a catholic pre school for age 3 and 4 and he absolutely loves it. The last time I saw him he was reading a story out of a small book. I was amazed! He didn’t know all the words but he was pretty good at sounding out the ones he wasn’t familiar with. He will be 5 this summer and is super excited to start Kindergarten. </p>
<p>My high school actually ran a program which I participated in all three years there. We ran two pre schools - an AM pre school and a PM pre school. Since our class periods were only about 45 or so minutes long, a preschool class would span over about 3 periods. We had about 15 students in a class as well as the teacher and we divided into three groups of five or something like that. We had about 15 preschoolers monday wednesday and friday. Your group taught preschool class once per week. On Tuesday and Thursday you prepared your lesson plans for whenever your next teaching day was. Since it spanned over three periods there were three “groups” of student teachers every preschool day basically because your class was only there for one period. Every student was “assigned” a preschooler that they helped out when needed and it was a great program everyone really enjoyed it. The kids were local from the area and I don’t think they had to pay anything to attend. We did art, science, math, games, reading, etc. we even had a cute little playground outside for them to play on. It was always interesting to see what everyone came up with as activities. Our teacher supervised us. At the end of the school year we did a graduation for the kids who would be starting kindergarten the next year and they got cute little diplomas and whatnot. 
I don’t know if that’s a program they have at other schools or not. Many of the people who took the class went on to become education majors.</p>
<p>Funny story that I’ll never forget - we did a Christmas party the one year where Santa came. We sent a note home to all the parents asking if they could please bring a wrapped gift when they dropped off their child that would be good for either a boy or a girl and we had santa hand them out to everyone. Most of the gifts were simple - books, a toy, etc. Anyway, the one mother had sent a gift of a bucket of home made cookies and a 10 dollar gift certificate to the toy store at the mall. I remember the little boy that got that gift was so upset he was crying and crying. He couldn’t understand why santa would give him a piece of paper for Christmas when everyone else got a toy! We kindly explained to him that he could take that paper to the toy store and pick out his own present. That made him feel slightly better and then he ate a cookie, lol. We also did a thing where we dipped the kids hands in finger paint and let them make their hand print on the wall and write their name under it. We had about 10 years of hand prints on the walls of the classroom when I left. I remember one little boy somehow “accidentally” stepped in the paint and “accidentally” opened the door to the class room and “accidentally” went running down the hallway. I thought the maintenance person was going to have a fit but they laughed.</p>