Shopping Around for a Great After School Program

An after school program is more than just a safe place to leave your kids these days. It's supposed to be an extension of school, an extension of the home. It's a place that you entrust with to find a way to put your child through wonderful, creative activities to help him experience fun and education. Only in a different way. There is some research that shows that children who are placed in a good after school program, do go on, often, to have better school records.

Of course, you don't just send your child to such a program for better grades. There are all kinds of things that you expect an after school program do for your child. To begin with, your kid gets to learn better communication skills and social skills. With a really good program though, there are critical thinking and problem-solving skills that he picks up as well.

However, you only get all these when you choose a really good after school program. How do you make sure that you do choose a really good one? Well, there are few things that you need to keep in mind when you go looking.

Ask yourself to begin with, if a preliminary survey of the place gives you a good feeling. You need to stop by a class in progress and see if you get a good feeling about what they do. That's the most important part. If your gut instinct seems to like it, it's probably safe to go ahead and look deeper.

While there may be a few good things that every afterschool program does well, you want more than that. You want to make sure that they cover all the basics adequately. For instance, they shouldn't have more than 15 kids to class. They should have a proper playground, and  everything should be adequately staffed.

You also want to look at who, specifically, will be working with your child. The teachers who supervise the particular class that your child will go to, need to be really good.

In general, you aren't looking for a place that's just like school. It needs to be a place that gives your child plenty of time to play and socialize. An afterschool program is a place to send your child to to pick up on the things that regular schools miss. Take a look at the daily schedule that they have. That should give you good idea how good they are.