Sun Flower Academy

«How am I driving?»
I am looking for after school program for my kids; and Sunflower came to my mind. It’s because my neighbor’s kids also go to this academy. However, after today I saw the poor driving behavior of Sunflower’s driver. I don’t want to risk my kids’ life over them. I would rather go to somewhere else.

My son and daughter both attend Sun Flower’s weekend program. Their Chinese classes are smaller ratio compared to other schools. My kids loves the teachers. My son was able to start his abacus learning with Yvonne Zhao when he was 4 ½ years old. At 6 years old he was able to achieve Mental math Level 1 which some of his peers are much older than him. Without their support and help my son
wouldn’t be where he is at today in Math!!! I highly recommend them.

My son has come to Sunflower for the Kindergarten after school program. There are only about 3 chinese schools in the area of San Ramon, Dublin Pleasanton and we unfortunately chose this one. I have come to find out that they only spend 20 min. on mandarin. They are suppose to teach english and math but I believe they are merely giving them worksheets to do. They have no outdoor play area. The indoor play area is a room with some blocks and some legos strewn on the floor and nothing else. My son is bored to the point that he does not want to go to regular school because he knows he will have to go to Sunflower after. It’s difficult for kids to concentrate on academics if they have pent up energy from sitting all day and not being able to play. The bathrooms are very dirty and smelly. I have contacted them with suggestions and either received no response or no consideration of my concerns.
Sunflower teachers would reward and motivate kids with candy and cookies. This is a recipe for overweight, unhealthy kids who seek junk food when they accomplish things. I hated this since I am very nutrition minded. I asked them to not do this or at least not give my son the junk food. I don’t think they listened and even if they did it would be hard for my son to understand why he wasn’t getting the the so called «rewards.»
The only decent program they offer is Kung-​fu. I believe it is Wushu style. The teacher seems to be really good. The only reason I know is that they had a demonstration and the kids were quite impressive. However, the classes are pricey unless you sign up for many classes up front.
We are going to send him to Yang Fan in Pleasanton. We toured the facility and it looks very clean and organized. The kindergarteners spend 40 min. on chinese and have 3 levels within kindergarten. They have an indoor and out door play area. They have all kinds of interesting programs to offer the kids especially for summer. I am hoping Yang Fan will be much better. I will review them once I have some experience with them.