We're in our third year here and this school is phenomenal. We started in the Toddlers class with…read moreteacher Anghelika, who is calm, wise, and super experienced - parents learn so much from her just by watching her interact with the kids. Now we're in the PreK class, teacher Kristina is compassionate, creative, and super in tune with what each kid needs. Kids learn a lot from her. Her love for the kids is something that's pretty special to see. Being part of a parent-participation school has been such a game-changer for our family. The friendships we made with families and teachers has been one of the most wonderful things we've experienced as a family--because it helped our kid see that other adults care about her, giving her a real sense of belonging. I've learned so much just by watching how the teachers and other parents handle tricky moments--things like setting boundaries, managing separation anxiety, helping kids with big emotions, and handling conflict between kids. I used to feel so unsure in those situations, but after three years at SPNS, I feel like I know what I'm doing. I've had plenty of practice and learned by example from some pretty great role models. We also attended other preschools. Compared to Bing Nursery School (drop off model) SPNS feels more like a true community that deeply care about you and your child, SPNS has parent ed a couple times a month where teachers and parents will support you with anything going on in your life - advice, just a listening ear, and similar struggles that'll make you feel that we're all in this together. Compared to Parents Nursery School (PNS): SPNS has more creative play options, like sensory tables, craft projects, and pretend play stations that is always switching in themes to something new. We didn't see that much variety at PNS. Compared to Redwood Parents Nursery School (RPNS): The parent participation at SPNS is much more manageable, much easier for families where both parents work. To us, SPNS isn't just a preschool--it's where our kid and us parents grew together. We feel so lucky to be part of it. If you're trying to decide on preschools, I'd say, take a tour during class time so you can get a feel for the vibe of the school in action. There's also a blog post about how to choose the right preschool that's pretty helpful: https://medium.com/@spnskidsblog/how-to-choose-the-best-preschool-3-tips-every-parent-needs-4e0aca1bd0dd

10/10 highly recommend. Amazing teachers, wonderful parent…read morecommunity, great indoor and outdoor play spaces.

I took the Red, Yellow, and Blue series with Bill, and he is such a skilled teacher! I have spent a…read morelot of time on Lingvano and Lifeprint in the past trying to learn ASL to keep up with my hard-of-hearing nephew, and I felt like I retained more from an hour and a half with Bill than I did from months on the apps. Bill's interactive, welcoming style even pulled in my husband and mom to join in the ASL fun! We are really enjoying signing with our infant son now and continuing to learn as a family. Thank you Bill!

Just took the intro class with Bill in person and it was just a fantastic experience. I'm really…read moreexcited to take his live series next. He is such an engaging instructor and he uses very effective, evidence based methods for learning. Highly recommend!

Carolina is the BEST EVER!! Extremely grateful to her for giving me support during postpartum. We (…read moreme and my baby ) go to her mommy and baby yoga and we love it. Even though my baby is crawling now, Carolina encourages us to attend her sessions. She is extremely attentive to both mine and my baby's needs. My little one loves her and feels extremely calm in her sessions. Her wisdom and advice has helped me recover from postpartum issues. She's prompt to respond to questions and has high quality resources to offer. Highly recommend. Grateful to her for everything she has been doing for us.

This would have been 5 stars based on the breastfeeding class I attended. I was reluctant to even…read morego to any breastfeeding class because it was important to me to not be attached to the idea of breastfeeding, and I was worried I'd be beaten over the head with how important it is and set myself up for mom guilt if it didn't work out. Quite the contrary, the speaker was really approachable and practical. She talked through just about every scenario and offered a really great mindset - feed as much breastmilk as you can whenever you can, and it's totally OK to make up the difference with formula. Unfortunately, the baby care class dropped this down to 4 stars. It was borderline a waste of time. The instructor was scattered and not very helpful. Lots of tech challenges. Not much help in the way of answering questions or providing practical advice. Very limited hands on practice. I went with a friend because my husband was out of town and I was almost embarrassed that she wasted time in that class with me.

Did a prenatal massage with Gracie and she's wonderful! The room is nice, she had all the comfort…read morepillows and really listened to where I noted any aches or pains to address. She also included some breathing techniques which was nice. Afterwords she also offered drinks and snacks from the studio lounge which being pregnant is always appreciated. Loved my massage here.

I reached out to Brilliant Births to find a birth doula. They offer a matching service and…read moreconnected me to 3 doulas who work independently (not employees of BB). We were really fortunate to find our birth doula (who we love!), but the other 2 candidates were not very impressive. The first doula missed our appointment with no follow-up communication. We were initially confused and thought she was the coordinator for BB, because she only communicated by text. The actual meeting was just by telephone so there was no face-to-face interaction, which felt strange. We could've easily FaceTimed or Zoomed. So communication and reliability were not great. The second doula abruptly canceled our half-hour appointment when we were 10 minutes late for a 30-minute appointment due to my husband wrapping up a Zoom meeting. During our appointment time, she was responding to my emails (in which I apologized for being late), but insisted she could no longer meet with us. I thought this was a really bad sign about what she would be like to work with - labor and delivery is rarely precisely timed and some flexibility is needed. In addition, her email said that she lives in Portola Valley, but we live Berkeley (also where Brilliant Births is located). This also struck me as strange, because it would take 1.5 hours for her to arrive to meet us at the hospital, which is not ideal.

My son attended 3-5th grade and my daughter is finishing up kindergarten at Stepping Stone. We…read morehighly recommend the program and appreciate the additional enrichment activities offered (eg, art, chess, abacus) and responsiveness of the staff. They also coordinate with Heart Beat Dance Academy to get kids to dance classes.

My son just started Kindergarten this fall. We needed afterschool care arrangements and preferred…read moreMandarin enrichment as part of that equation. We feel very fortunate to find Stepping Stone as the solution. I attended mandarin weekend school as a child and they taught in the very traditional methods (rote memory, writing pages of characters, etc). I detested going to chinese school. Fortunately, this is not the case at all at SSEA. The teachers are kind, encouraging, motivating and age appropriate. They sing songs, play games, the teachers and children are happy, smiling. The students are well behaved and enjoying their days and LEARNING! SSEA provides pick up from various schools in Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood Shores. They also offer enrichment classes for abacus, art, chess, and piano (keyboard). This solves so many things for us so we don't have to fill up our weekends with these things. While I appreciate that the elementary schools offer Spanish as part of their standard curriculum, I felt it was important to provide the mandarin language learning to my ABC son. I'm sure at this rate his Mandarin will exceed my skills soon. I'm excited to have a "secret" language to share with him. My son LOVES going to chinese school, he's interested in learning more mandarin, and we're all grateful for a caring and effective chinese school in our area. Thank you Stepping Stone!

Do yourself a favor, and get a doula if you're expecting. If you want a positive birth story to…read moreconfidently get yourself through newborn phase, then Deja is whom you should hire. Deja has the most amazing human touch - she can read the room, read through the anxiety and confusion a first time expecting parent has, and guide you and your SO to make a clear decision together. She taught us SO much more than all hours of Kaiser classes we sat through. She prepared us for the world of labor, delivery, and post partum care better than my OB/Gyn. Most of all, Deja helped advocate for US - mine and my husband's needs, preferences, and most of all, our personality. My husband was skeptical of the need, and now he admits it was the best investment we spent since mental stress is priceless. I was so confident, informed, and calm from her lessons and tips that when my water broke, I didn't even call her until a few hours later since I knew what signs to watch for. My labor was only about 5 hours on a busy December afternoon, most of which was in a triage room with Deja calmly setting my mind and my body up for a stressless, all natural birth. When I couldn't get comfortable, she read my body queues and helped me get a push bar installed on the delivery room bed and I was able to crouch down standing atop the bed! Deja literally, worked her magic, channeled her energy into me, and helped me successfully deliver our rainbow baby - and an amazing story to share for years to come. Congratulations, you're expecting - now get a doula. If you're lucky, you'll get to experience it under Deja's magical, compassionate, expert care.

We chose to do private birth classes with Deja in preparation for birth and would highly recommend…read moreher! She answered all of our (many) questions and we left each class feeling excited and informed. We feel super confident going into our birth that we know what to expect and will be able to make informed decisions that are best for us and our baby when the time comes. Thank you, Deja, for being such a wonderful and supportive resource!

My daughter and I are both natural artists but needed improvement, so we had taken a semester of…read moreart classes back in 2006 by Art director and instructor Gemma. The things we learned really helped us truly understand about different mediums and techniques in such a short time too! I have been to several art classes through out my life and never had taken so much in as I did with Gemma. She is very versatile and can teach both adults and very young children with no art experience at all. I admired the professional and personable approach she gave to each student. She truly cares about art and wants to see everyone reach their goal. We had a wonderful time and the classes were more then worth it. I highly recommend this place!

My 1st grade daughter absolutely loves art, so I was very happy to find an art school that would…read morechallenge her, and help her to develop her interests and talents. The methods used seem to be very effective, and I think their approach would help anyone, whatever their level. They use computers so that each student can work on a different project, based on the skill level and interest. It's not "computer based instruction", the computers provide the "step-by-step" instruction for completing the assignment. This lets each student work at a different level and at their own pace. Then the teacher can focus on giving individual advice and instructions. The teachers are really great at working with the children. My daughter is so happy with their program, she literally runs down the sidewalk from our car to the school every time I drop her off! I can also say that their customer service is EXCELLENT, they are very client oriented, accessible to the parents, and professional in dealing with the "business side" of the school. If you are considering Lascaux, look no further, just find a class that works for you and sign up!

So as with most of our summer camps, I have to go by what my daughter tells me and try to glean…read morewhat's going on based on minutes of being onsite during pickups and dropoffs. Our 7-year-old was here for a week this past summer. This camp seems to have a SimCity/Lego crossover thing going on, which I can totally get behind. Every day my daughter would talk about adding new buildings and bringing home a score sheet summarizing the state of her town (population, approval rating, money in the treasury, complaints and accolades from the townspeople). I came in one morning to find some escaped criminals holding up little speech bubbles. Looking around at all the little towns, there were some seriously impressive structures. After the week I downloaded Cities: Skylines (the computer game) and am looking forward to playing it.

My 8 and 10 year old daughter both loved this camp! Every day I picked them up, they were so…read moreexcited to show me all the things they had built. They seemed to really enjoy the civics nature of the building and telling me about why they had built particular structures to help their town. I was quite impressed by this camp that it turned out to be a great learning experience. I highly recommend it! I was a bit concerned when I signed up that this would be a mostly boy camp -- my daughters had some girl friends there with them and I noticed a few other girls there who we did not know. It seems like @ 30-40% girls that week, in case you are wondering. Though it didn't really make a difference as they work in small teams anyway.