The Children's Workshop Oakland
Community SubscriberOakland, CA
To see Department of Social Services records on this facility, click on its DSS Facility License # below.
- 2021: licensed capacity increased from 33 to 43
At The Children’s Workshop Oakland, our goal is to create a joyful, language-rich learning environment wherein preschool children of mixed ages and abilities freely experiment and explore their blossoming interests through participation in immersive self-guided play and collaborative project-based activities.
Combining the developmental advantages of a small, high quality preschool program with the provision of full time childcare, The Children’s Workshop Oakland is a place where young children are viewed as intelligent namers, describers and connoisseurs of the world around them. Our Reggio-inspired program is predicated upon a commitment to responsive language, child-centered teaching and emergent curriculum design.
Parent Q&A
Parent Reviews
Parents, please Sign in to post a review on this page.My son attended CWO from September 2020-August 2021.
This school is so special. My son grew so much in just a year! It's a great blend of play-based and Kindergarten readiness. It's a project-based approach (which I never heard of previously) but my son really comprehended the concepts. Some projects were Space, Oceans, Earth Science, Woodlands, Compost, and the human body.
The facility is.a victorian home; They have beautiful and well maintained indoor and outdoor spaces.
The parent community is engaged but chill. We had a WhatsApp group for birthday parties, meet ups, and updates on runny noses.
The director is incredible. She is a very strong communicator and very responsive. I know managing a school during Covid must have been a nightmare, but she did it with such strength and grace while keeping parents informed every step of the way. I felt very safe and confident sending my son there.
The teacher sent lovely weekly newsletters and photos from the week that we adored. They always made time for a brief chat at pickup. I always felt looped in to how my son was doing and what he was learning.
My son has food allergies and the school was very accommodating and understanding. They feed the kids all snacks and lunch. My son never had a reaction in their care.
I highly recommend CWO to all covid-conscious and/or food-allergy-conscious parents!
Highly recommend Children's Workshop Oakland. Play based, engaging, snacks and lunch provided. The teachers really connect with the kids and clearly love what they do.
Highly recommend Children's Workshop Oakland in Lake Merrit/ Cleaveland Heights area.
Hi! I'm a current CWO parent and we LOVE it there; our son attended from 7/2020-8/23 and our daughter started there in 8/23. Jessica, the director, was very communicative about the background check thing and it was done before hiring, it just didn't go fully through the systems the way they thought it had or something. We received multiple emails about it a day as the issue was getting resolved. They are meticulous about hiring, safety, health, and the general well-being of the children. Our daughter started just after she turned 2 and I was really worried about her because she'd been with a nanny since 6 months and didn't have many words to express herself. Our son was in daycare since 9 months so when he started it was just a new school after his shut down at the beginning of the pandemic. Both kids thrived there. They teach the kids to be kind, loving, inclusive, and really let the group interests drive large group projects while also teaching basic preschool stuff like counting, the alphabet, songs, and later, basic reading. They have a mixed 2/3 cohort with 4 full time teachers, and my daughter's language and confidence has expanded so much since she's been there. She calls all the kids in class her "best friends" and enjoys each and every one of them. Every teacher (and we've had them all at this point) is warm, loving, and amazing. The community is lovely and we still get together with the families my son went to school with. Feel free to message me if you have other questions!
I'm a parent of a 3.5-year-old who started in the TRIS primary program back in September. My kiddo has a history of shyness and social anxiety. We initially put him in daycare at 18 months, but he seemed so unhappy there that we switched him back to a nanny. With the nanny's help, he became much more social with other children and learned how to assert his boundaries. We decided he was ready for preschool, and chose TRIS because of their focus on language and early independence. My son was trilingual (English, Portuguese, and my native language) and we thought he would pick up Spanish quickly.
Alas, he had a very hard time adjusting to TRIS. He cried at dropoff and refused to do any "work" for months, and he was too shy to talk to anyone at all -- even in English. At home, he's a happy, rambunctious kid with a huge vocabulary. But at TRIS, none of his classmates knew he could even talk. Fortunately, things started turning around in January. He began saying "Buenos Dias" and "Adios", repeating Spanish words at circle time, engaging in lessons, and even started talking at Show and Tell and singing in Music class.
We just went to Parent's Day to observe him doing his "work", and overall I was really happy with his progress. His fine motor skills have really leveled up -- he can paint/color within the lines, cut shapes out very accurately, and arrange freakishly tiny beads to make fun shapes. TRIS has also taught him a lot of life skills, like cutting up fruit, arranging and cutting flowers, washing dishes, and pouring water. He's also doing various math-related puzzles and learning his letters and numbers. But the really important thing is that he seems much more comfortable and confident in the classroom. He is learning a lot about music as well (tho we didn't see the music class) -- he jumps up for high notes, lies down for low notes, and can identify both on a piano. And he understands Spanish quite well too; we hired a Spanish-speaking babysitter for a few days and he understood her perfectly.
Given the progress he's made and how hard it is for him to make transitions, we decided to re-enroll him for next year. One big advantage of TRIS is that kids stay with the same teachers for 3 years. He still complains about going to a "Spanish" school, though, and I think we need to find ways to get him more interested in the Spanish language outside school.
As for playtime, it's true that TRIS seems to have a more intense curriculum than other schools. Our kiddo leaves at 3pm so he's only averaging ~3 hours of "work" every day right now. He gets a long lunch / recess from 12-1:30(?), then naps for 1-2 hours. There's also music (2x/week), art (1x/week), and cooking (1x/week usually), which are all fun breaks from the standard Montessori work.
Re. the TRIS schedule, yes they do get a lot of breaks! In the past, we've gotten babysitters or just gone on family vacations during the breaks.