Willow Tree Child Care

I love how excited my son is to go to school everyday! He often gets time with the older children (he is 20 months and he plays with the 2 –2.5 yr olds) and IMHO it has accelerated his speech (already great), social, and problem solving skills. I pop in unexpectedly often and everyone at this school seems genuinely happy. It is a pleasure to see that the teachers truly love children and their job. I can feel at ease while at work, which is a huge relief.

We had an amazing experience with Willow Tree! My son started there when he was 18 months old. It was our first daycare experience and the Director made it so easy and comfortable for us. The teachers were wonderful too. There wasn’t any turnover when my son attended which was great. The teachers were kind, caring, and I felt like they really loved their jobs. My son learned so much at Willow Tree; we were amazed everyday! He made so many great friends too. We recently moved to the suburbs because we were expecting Baby #2 and were heartbroken to have to leave Willow Tree. We have been looking at daycare centers near our new home and haven’t been able to find anything that compares to Willow Tree. I highly recommend Willow Tree to all families. You and your child will love it!

I want to echo all of the other reviews here. I was really nervous about day care, but this place is top notch. As mentioned, Suzy is fantastic and makes me feel my daughter (15 months when she started) is truly cared for. I ran into some parents from my daughters class, and I feel they summed it up — They love my daughter, and we love them! The staff are fantastic and truly diverse. The children are very diverse as well. This is very important to me. My daughter is used to having lots of family give her much attention, and the transition took only a week before our daughter was comfortable and looking forward to seeing everyone.
I love that they have stroller parking, park visits, flower bombs in vacant lots, weekly newsletters with pictures and description of what they were doing so we can reinforce. She comes home with presents for mom and dad, craft projects and I wish I had the energy and patience to do this at home. Our daughter was so much more advanced that we gave her credit for and we learned this by bringing her to Willow. She minds them much better, lol! She sits at a table and eats food as a group with other children, washes her hands, and doesn’t tear the house down when diaper changed. So it was nice to see what she was capable of and where we were holding her back. She is interested in so much more (letters), different books, songs, etc.
What was really important to me was flexibility (half days) and understanding of different food requirements. There are vegetarian options for kids, and the food is organic and great. We only do meat, fruit and veggies, and this has worked well, having to supplement meat sometimes when things can’t be separated, but that has been super easy. They really make it work. Suzy will scramble her an egg if need be. They ALWAYS let me know how she naps, eats, and how her day was. Sometimes, she needs to be close to one of them and that is important that they recognize it and help her. The older classrooms look awesome. I also like the variety of teachers. They mix it up, meaning there are different teachers at different times with different groups, which has to help their fatigue and patience.
There is GOOD energy here and they really do love the children. They are stimulated, they play and I look forward to bringing my daughter here. It seems like it would be a cool place to work, too. They just opened infant part, which is awesome!

My 20 month old daughter attends The Willow Tree and my 3 month old will be starting soon. Let me start by saying I am pretty particular when it comes to my children. I feel like I took on the job of giving them the best care I could and I take this extremely seriously… as I know we all do. So I was super picky about where I was willing to send them. The Willow Tree has a great balance of a school environment combined with a play environment and my daughter gets so much nurturing and affection. She is amazing yet challenging and to see how patient they are with her and how gentle and caring they are warms my heart. She often comes home with a cute, little french braid or pigtails which really tells me that they take time for her, they care and they can get her to sit still for more than 5 seconds :).It never ceases to amaze me how well behaved she is when she is there. She is learning so much. She has a huge vocabulary and can sing tons of songs which is adorable :) She is also learning Spanish and she can count! They have a nice news letter they send home every week so you can see everything they did. She expends her energy doing things like yoga, dancing, planting flowers and going to the park. They also go the extra mile with things like movie nights and Mother’s Day breakfast which just make it feel special. They also raise money for charity which I think totally rocks! I volunteered at a lemonade stand there to benefit the Humboldt Park Boys and Girls Club a few weeks ago. I was looking for a place that was structured with written documentation of naps and diaper changing and eating but wasn’t too sterile and had that homey feel so my daughter would feel comfortable and cared for. I found everything I wanted in The Willow Tree. I can’t say enough good things about this place!

My daughter started at Willow Tree at 15-​months and has been with the child care center since their opening day. The type of attention she has received has been without question better than anything that any parent could hope for. Suzy, the director and owner, is the heart and soul of this facility. Her keen senses have lead to hiring of the awesomest, most capable, most patient, most fun, and the best teachers available who all share her spark for raising capable, kind, creative kids. My daughter has loved Willow Tree like a second home; in fact I am sure on many days she has had more fun there than at home.
Things that I love — fresh, hot, organic breakfast and lunches, weekly art teacher from near-​by art studio, weekly music teacher who comes in for a special music class, Willow Tree teachers who teach Yoga, lots of hands on crafts and art, both male and female teachers, Spanish lessons, lots of singing, dancing, reading, quarterly date nights for parents, active involvement in the community by supporting non-​profit organizations in the area, lots of outdoor play at nearby parks, philosophy of teaching how to problem solve, stress on play and creativity.
I cannot be more thankful for the teachers at Willow Tree who are helping me raise a confident, creative, kind, and happy child. She comes home everyday with so many new words, songs, ideas.
They are starting an infant program as well this summer which is a great bonus for the community.

Our son started at Willow Tree at two years old. As a first time mom the decision to put him in school was such a tough one. I had so many questions and reservations, would he eat, would he sleep, would they love him?! I took some time to research a few schools in the area, talked with other parents and after meeting Ms. Suzy and talking with the teachers decided that Willow Tree would be a good fit for our family. To be honest his first day I still had reservations about it but I quickly found out that they really care about these kids. Our son had a tough time when I would drop him off at school in the mornings but Ms. Suzy was always there to provide a little love and distraction. And soon enough that distraction was no longer needed but Ms. Suzy and Mr. Sam were always there to say good morning and get our guys day started off right.
Over the next couple of months we saw such a positive change in our son. He was talking more, playing nicely with other children, singing songs, even saying the days of the week. It was so wonderful to see him learning and growing.
We had to move out of state after a few months of him starting at Willow Tree and leaving this school was an extremely tough decision. Just knowing how much he was learning, how much fun he was having and how much we loved the teachers made leaving so tough. It is a great group of loving teachers who really care and are teaching these things more that I felt I could in a day!
I also want to note something that I really didn’t think about in the beginning but I loved that they have males on staff. One of Gray’s favorites was Mr. Sam and he still talks about him today!
I highly recommend Willow Tree for your children and wish I could have moved them to California with us! We miss them more than there are words to say.