Coming to Frederick County, Maryland
Known. Loved. Taught.
Full-day Christian child care in a church building in Frederick County, for children two to five and their school-age brothers and sisters. 6:30 to 6:00, Monday through Friday, summer included. Letters, sounds and numbers every day, fifteen minutes at a time, inside a day that is mostly play, from a teacher who knows your child by name.
- Hours
- 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, all year
- Ages
- Two to five, plus before- and after-school care for school-age children
- Learning
- Letters, sounds and numbers every day, in pieces of fifteen minutes or less. The rest is play with a teacher in it.
- Where
- Inside a church building in Frederick County, MD
- Status
- Working through licensing with the Maryland State Department of Education. No date yet. Join the interest list and you will hear the day there is one.
What the name means
Known by name. Loved on purpose. Taught every day.
The name supplies the middle word. Each of the three is a promise about us, not a prediction about your child, and each is something you can watch happen from the chair by the door.
Known by name.
The teacher at the door says your child's name before the coat is off, and within a few weeks knows what they are afraid of, what they are working on, and what they call their blanket.
Loved on purpose.
Love here is something we do rather than say — the same face all year, a chair by the door for the first weeks, a call by mid-morning — and because your child is known, more is asked of them, kindly, than a stranger could ask.
Taught every day.
Letters and their sounds, numbers and counting, rhymes, and books read aloud and talked about: every day, from two, never more than fifteen minutes at a time, from a teacher who then sits back down in the play.
The day
A Tuesday, start to finish.
Doors open
The teacher at the door says your child's name before the coat is off. The backpack goes on their own hook, and whoever needs breakfast gets it at the quiet table. Books, puzzles and blocks while the room fills. Early enough that nobody has to choose between the drop-off and the commute.
Circle, the small table, then the room opens
Everyone on the rug. One Bible story, told the way you would tell it to a three-year-old, a song or two, and the day laid out so every child knows what is coming. Then four children go to the small table with a teacher and five letter cards, in no set order, for a few minutes, and then the next four. Then the room opens: blocks, paint, the water table, the play store, the book corner, and a teacher sitting inside the play rather than standing at the edge of it.
Outside
Every day the weather allows: coats and boots in February, hats and the hose in July. Running, digging, the tricycle loop, and the kind of noise a building can only take out of doors. Ice, lightning and a heat advisory keep us in. Drizzle does not.
Lunch, then mats down
Everyone eats at a table with a grown-up, and please and thank you are part of the meal. Then mats, a blanket from home, a dim room. Rest is rest: nobody is made to sleep, and nobody is woken. A child who does not nap gets a book and a quiet corner, not a scolding.
The bus, the yard, then you
The school-age brothers and sisters come off the bus for a snack, homework at the big table, and the yard again. The threes have their second turn at the small table behind them and their second time outside. Whenever you come through the door, a teacher who was in the room tells you how it went, and the note home is already in the backpack.
Hour by hour, in the threes-and-fours room
The pieces in bold are the teaching: 9 of them, none longer than fifteen minutes, never two in a row, about 2 hours in all. Everything else is play with a teacher in it, meals, rest and the yard. The twos' day has the same shape in ten-minute pieces; it is in the guide, with this one.
| 6:30 | Doors open. The teacher at the door says your child's name. Breakfast at the quiet table for anyone who needs it; books, puzzles and blocks while the room fills. |
| 7:45 | Story. A book read aloud on the rug, the teacher's finger under the words, and talked about after. |
| 8:00 | Circle. One Bible story, told the way you would tell it to a three-year-old. A song or two. The day laid out so every child knows what is coming. |
| 8:15 | Letters. The small table: four children, a teacher, five letter cards in no set order, a few minutes, then the next four. The rest of the room draws or builds. |
| 8:30 | The room opens. Blocks, paint, the water table, the play store, the book corner. A teacher inside the play, not at the edge of it. |
| 9:15 | Numbers. Things in hand: bears to count, cubes to pattern, the calendar, a game with a turn for everyone. |
| 9:30 | Snack. |
| 9:45 | Sounds. Rhymes, the beats clapped in a name, the first sound in a word. Songs and games, because that is how a four-year-old hears the pieces of a word. |
| 10:00 | Outside. Every day the weather allows. Running, digging, the tricycle loop. |
| 10:45 | Story. The second read-aloud of the day, and the questions after it. |
| 11:00 | Lunch. At a table with a grown-up. Please and thank you are part of the meal. |
| 11:30 | Mats down. A blanket from home, a dim room. Nobody is made to sleep and nobody is woken. A child who stays awake gets a book and a quiet corner. |
| 1:45 | Up. The bathroom, then a book on the mat while the room wakes up. |
| 2:00 | Snack. |
| 2:15 | Letters. The small table, the second time today. A child who has the letters moves on to the sounds, and then to putting two or three together, when that child is ready and not when the calendar says. |
| 2:30 | Outside. |
| 3:00 | The bus. School-age brothers and sisters arrive: a snack, homework at the big table, the yard. In the threes-and-fours room, the room opens again. |
| 3:30 | Numbers. The second time: counting coins into the play store's till, or working out how many more blocks the tower needs to reach the shelf. |
| 3:45 | Show and tell. One child, one thing from home, and the questions the others ask. |
| 4:00 | Snack. Something small, for the long afternoon. |
| 4:15 | Music. The beat clapped, a rhythm passed round the circle, a song learned by heart. |
| 4:30 | The yard again. When the light allows. Puzzles and books when it does not. |
| 5:00 | Listen and color. One piece of real music, the composer's name said out loud, while they color. |
| 5:15 | The room empties. Quiet play. Rooms combine for the last hour, always inside the ratio. A teacher who was in the room tells you how the day went, and the note home is already in the backpack. |
| 6:00 | Doors close. |
This is the day as planned. The clock moves a few minutes with the season and the weather. The shape does not.
Why it works
Why loved comes before taught.
You have probably been told to choose: the warm place, or the place that teaches. We do not think that is a choice. A three-year-old attempts a hard thing — a letter, a sound, a number past ten — when she is sure of the adult beside her. Take the adult away and the attempt goes with her.
So the teacher who knows your child is not the soft half of the program. She is how the program works. And a place that asks nothing of a child is not being kind; it is writing her off politely. Because your child is known here, more is asked of them.
This is not a hope. It has been tested. In a randomized trial across thirty-five Head Start classrooms, teachers were trained to run calmer, warmer rooms and nothing about the lessons changed. The children came out ahead on vocabulary, letters and math, and the chain was traced afterward: a steadier relationship, a child better able to settle and attend, and then the learning. The evidence, with its limits, is in the guide.
What we teach
Both halves of reading, on purpose, every day.
Reading to a child builds their language: the words, the sentences, the sense of how a story goes. It does not teach them letters. Only letter work does that, and letter work on its own does nothing for their language. Most programs do one and let you assume the other. We do both, every day, and we keep them apart on the clock so you can see each one happen.
Letters and their sounds.
At the small table: four children, a teacher, five letter cards in no set order, a few minutes, twice a day. A child who has the letters moves on to the sounds, and then to putting two or three together, when that child is ready and not when the calendar says.
The sounds inside words.
Rhymes, the beats clapped in a name, the first sound in a word. Taught with songs and games, because that is how a four-year-old hears the pieces of a word.
Numbers, shapes and patterns.
With things in hand: bears to count, cubes to pattern, coins in the play store, and the question of how many more blocks the tower needs to reach the shelf. This is the one place the research is clearest that a game with a teacher in it beats a lesson.
Books, twice a day.
Read aloud on the rug, sometimes with a finger under the words, always talked about after. Most of the language a child learns here is learned in conversation, so the teacher talks with your child all day, not at them.
Music.
The beat clapped and passed round the circle in the afternoon, and one piece of real music at the end of the day, the composer's name said out loud, while they color.
By the fours room
The work is what Maryland's own prekindergarten standards ask for: naming some letters, hearing a rhyme, clapping the syllables in a word, catching its first sound, blending two or three sounds into one, recognizing their own name in print, and counting to twenty. Children get there at different speeds. A four-year-old who is slow to letters is ordinary, not a worry, and gets more time at the small table, not less. No kindergarten in Maryland expects a child to arrive reading, and neither do we.
What you will not see
A worksheet. A tablet. A room of three-year-olds facing a board. A child made to sit still longer than she can. Or a child sent home in disgrace because she is not ready for something yet.
How you will know
The note home every evening says what your child actually did. Friday's names the letters, sounds and numbers they worked on that week and how it went. Twice a year you sit down with the teacher and a folder of your child's work. And the door is open: come and watch the small table any morning.
The first two weeks
The morning they do not look back.
Most children cry at drop-off for a week or two. Then one morning they hang up their own coat, head for the blocks, and, if they say anything at all, it is some version of "you can go now." That morning is what the first two weeks are for. It comes before the letters do; those arrive later, a few at a time, on the Friday note.
- A short first day, then a longer one. Two hours, then a morning, then a day with lunch. Goodbyes are quick and honest; nobody sneaks out.
- The chair by the door. A grown-up chair just inside the classroom, yours for as long as you need it. Some parents use it for ten minutes. Some use it for a week.
- A call by mid-morning. The first few days, a teacher calls to tell you how it is going, and we will not say "fine" if it was not.
Before you ask
What you can hold us to.
Every adult is checked before their first day.
Background checks and fingerprints for everyone who works in the building, including whoever cleans it. Nobody starts until the results are back.
Your child's teachers stay your child's teachers.
The same faces at the door every morning, all year. When a teacher takes lunch, a regular floater the children already know steps in. A child learns words inside a relationship, and a teacher who leaves in February takes some of them with her.
Outside every day. No screens, ever.
The yard in the morning and again in the afternoon, every day the weather allows. No television for a rainy afternoon and no tablet at drop-off.
You will always know how the day went.
Every evening, the note home: a few lines about what your child actually did, written by someone who was in the room. On Fridays it names the letters, sounds and numbers they worked on that week.
The door is locked and the pickup list is short.
You come in with your own code. Your child leaves only with the adults you have named, and they show photo ID until we know their faces.
Cameras record. The director reviews.
Cameras cover the classrooms, the hallways and the yard, and the director reviews the footage. There is no live feed.
A runny nose is not a reason to call you at work.
A fever of 100.4, vomiting or diarrhea means a phone call and a trip home, and 24 hours fever-free before coming back. Ordinary February sniffles do not. A fall that leaves a mark gets a call, not a note.
Nothing lands on the bill that was not on the price page.
Tuition, any registration fee, what is included and the date of the next increase go on this website the day we are licensed. Nothing shows up at signing that was not on that page.
Faith
What Christian means here, on a Tuesday.
One Bible story at morning circle, told the way you would tell it to a three-year-old. A thank-you before lunch. Songs that come home in the car. That is the whole of it, and it is said out loud rather than hinted at.
The name comes from the best-known sentence in the Bible, and that sentence does not describe a feeling. It names something given. We take that as the standard: love here is what we do on a Tuesday, not what we say about ourselves.
We are not tied to one denomination. Families of every background are welcome, nobody is asked what they believe, and nothing political comes into the room. The building belongs to a church; the weekday program is ours, run by our staff, and the only adults in a classroom are the teachers who work in it. More in the questions.
Where
Inside a church building in Frederick County.
Church buildings already have what a good preschool needs: bright rooms built for children, a yard to fence, and a parking lot where drop-off takes two minutes. A real building in a real neighborhood, minutes from home rather than out on a highway.
We will name the building and put the address here the day it is settled. The zip code on the form is not nosiness; it is shaping where we look.
Who we are
One of us has done this before.
A former teacher who has opened and run a child care center, and a software engineer who has spent the past year on buildings, regulations and numbers. We both live in Frederick County, and our own children are growing up here.
Names and faces go up the day we open the doors. Until then, a person answers every message within two working days.
The interest list
Tell us what you need before we set it in stone.
We cannot enroll a child until the license issues, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can do is hear from you first: your hours, your commute, what you are using now, and what would make a bad day easier. It is shaping what we build.
- Two emails at most, a month apart. And one the day we are licensed. Nothing else.
- Nobody else ever sees it. Never sold, never shared, never handed to anyone else.
- Never a child's name or birthday. Ages in whole years is as far as we ask.
- One word and you are off it. Reply "stop" to anything we send.
Two other people we would like to hear from.
You lead a church
Your building is quiet Monday through Friday, and it may already have what a preschool needs. Everything we set up packs away before Sunday. Tell us about it.
You want to work with children
We will take on aides from sixteen and pay for the training a lead teacher needs. If that is you, put your name down early.
While you are deciding
Guides for Frederick County parents.
Straight answers about choosing child care here, written from what parents actually ask rather than from a brochure. Useful whether or not you ever come to us.
How to choose a daycare in Frederick County
Start with who is in the room and how long they have been there, then the day itself, then the hours and the summer. Visit at a busy hour, and trust what you see over what you are told.
Will my child learn anything, or just play?
Yes, if a teacher is in the play and the letters get their own fifteen minutes. What a four-year-old is actually expected to know, what the studies found, and how to tell a program from a slogan.
How to read a daycare's daily schedule
Ask for the schedule and count the minutes: teaching in pieces of fifteen minutes or less, never two in a row, outside twice, rest that is rest, a teacher inside the play. Ours is here in full.