Alexandria VA Preschool

Our Preschool in Del Ray, Alexandria VA is happy to welcome children from 3 weeks old to 5 years old. We provide for you and your little one:

• Infant Daycare/Nursery School
• Toddler Program
• Preschool

The Nest Academy Learning Preschool in Del Ray, Alexandria VA

has successfully managed to become one of the best preschools/day care centers in Del Ray area and beyond. We offer to the children an amazing playing and learning experience, and to the parents – peace of mind that their kids are in good hands.

What Parents Say About The Nest Academy Learning Preschool

Family owned, our first preschool was established in 1999 in Lorton VA. The second location was opened in Del Ray, Alexandria VA 15 years later. For the past 17 years, The Nest Academy Learning Preschool has been developing and successfully implementing a great early childhood education program that prepares our children for a successful future.

Del Ray Infant Daycare/Nursery School

Are you anxious about separating with your newborn for the first time? Our Del Ray preschool/daycare center provides a safe and nurturing environment in which each baby can happily grow and develop. We do our best to keep the necessary balance of teachers-lead learning time and self-discovery time. Here our youngest children are being taken care of with the utmost warmth and patience.

Some of the features of our Infant Program:

• We are childcare providers who believe that communication with parents of our children is very important. Every child is unique and has his or her own schedule and needs. While most of our infants eat and sleep on demand, we strive to follow parent’s instructions about each baby’s individual schedule.
• We takes care of our babies in a way, which fosters their sense of trust. We make sure that their needs are promptly met by our warm and caring stuff. We hold them, play with them, rock them, talk to them,  and soothe them by using calm voice and gentle touch.
• Our infant daycare in Del Ray, Alexandria VA, offers experiences that lead to physical, emotional and cognitive development of our infants, like letting them play with age-appropriate toys, exercising them by adding tummy time and sit with support, or providing outdoor time.
• We encourage development of our babies’ language skills. Our wonderful teachers sing, read and talk to them throughout the day.

Del Ray Toddler Program

Your child is becoming an independent learner. He or she explores the environment using emerging physical and intellectual abilities. Our preschool strategy is to be there for your child, to offer our help when it’s needed and to encourage his or her curiosity and enthusiasm.

The Toddler Program of our preschool in Del Ray, Alexandria VA, includes:

• Introducing children to a more structured day, as they follow their daily schedule to prepare them for a preschool.

• Helping our toddlers to become independent, self-confident and well-balanced. Our Toddler Program encourages the development of self-help skill, like being able to dress up for outdoor time, clean up after the play or manipulate spoons.

• Providing a language-rich environment in which children learn how to communicate. Our preschool teachers continue singing and reading a lot to the children, and start teaching them the vocabulary necessary for expressing their feelings or desires.

• Providing teacher lead group activities and self-directed play. We play with the children inside of their classrooms as well as at our secure and necessary equipped playground.

• Encouraging development of positive social skills. At this age children tend to play not with each other, but next to each other. It doesn’t mean that they do not appreciate each other’s company. The teachers of our preschool make sure that each child feels that he or she belongs to the group.

• Introducing sensory and art activities, music, construction and science exploration.

• Helping development of fine motor skills and gross motor skills, as well as hand-eye coordination by providing age appropriate activities and games.

• Developing children’s self-esteem and confidence by showing them respect and ensuring that their feelings are valued, yet assorting teacher authority by providing structure and borders to maintain healthy growth and development of our toddlers

Del Ray Preschool Program

Del Ray, Alexandria VA, Preschool program gives importance to individual abilities of our children and their needs. We do not expect all our children to have the same level of development of the physical, mental and emotional abilities. Every child is growing and learning at his or her own pace. We never push our preschoolers to do something they don’t like or not ready for yet. Our preschool simply encourage and motivate them in every aspect of their learning processes.

Besides our carefully studied program, here are few examples of a different way we approach our goals of the Preschool Program:

• We put a lot of effort in helping kids to feel safe and loved when they are away from parents. It is especially important during the adaptation period

• All the preschool activities are encouraging kids to not only learn and play, but to socialize within the group

• We help our children to find creative uses for materials and let them create at their own pace

• The Staff members of our preschool recognize the importance of the following aspects when identifying creativity in children:

o All children are creative to some degree
o Some are more creative in one area than other areas

• It is important to welcome and appreciate the creative act and the child who expresses it

• Our preschool encourages children to develop the habit of exercising every morning by doing it in-group right before circle time. That helps all children unify and feel all like one body

• We provide sign language and two second language fun courses at no extra cost:

o French every Wednesday
o Spanish every Friday

Our Del Ray preschool strongly believes that the success of our program is based on establishing a mutual partnership between our staff members and parents. Besides our yearly parent/teacher conferences we schedule twice during the year, we welcome parents to communicate with the teachers as much as they can.