Shining Star Bilingual Montessori

This was the absolute best experience for our 2-3 year old. If we hadn’t moved, we would never have left. Miss Wendy and Miss Xing are the kindest and warmest teachers who made my daughter feel loved every day. We had a new baby while our daughter was attending Shining Star and  extra special attention was given to her every day so she didn’t feel overshadowed by the new baby or left out. My husband and I do not speak much Chinese and we were amazed at how much our daughter learned in such a short time. Shining Star is the number one thing we miss most about San Francisco and I would recommend to absolutely everyone who is looking for a preschool in the Bay Area.

My daughter has been attending Shining Star when the school opened in November.  It was her first transition from a nanny to school and while not easy, I believe the transition (~2 weeks) went well mainly because of Wendy's connection & attention to my daughter during a difficult time.  Since then she has progressed a lot & comes home singing new songs, count numbers and knows the alphabet.  She likes the other children and talks about Wendy and them all the time at home.  The space is large so the kids have a lot of room to play & run around.  My daughter never fights going to school and is excited to see Wendy and the other kids everyday when we go.  I highly recommend Shining Star for kids in the area looking for a Montessori school in the area.  We are glad we made the decision to send my daughter there and looking forward to see how she continues to grow there.

Ms. Wendy is a great teacher and she put her students’ interest and safety as her top priority. My son attended Montessori preschool when he was 2 year old, we had Ms. Wendy as his Head teacher for one and half years. She’s caring and paying close attention to her students. My son liked her a lot. He learned phonics, alphabet sounds, tracing, drawing shapes, numbers recognition, physical counting, and many different Montessori techniques from Ms. Wendy. When I drop off my son every day, I have full confidence that Ms. Wendy will take good care of him (of course so does all students). She gives me a brief status report of how things went in class daily and She let me know if my son finished his lunch and how his nap time. I really have the peace of mind that my son is in good hands. I noticed that my son grew up and learned how to take care of his own like washing hands, eating his lunch, packing toys. I believe Ms. Wendy trained him very well. She is caring and ensuring kids put jacket on when it is cold outside and supervising the kids to play safe. Ms. Wendy is awesome!

Wendy was our oldest daughter's very first teacher, so in a way she was our first teacher.  Our daughter was 2-1/2 when she first started preschool, and we couldn't have asked for a better match than Wendy.  The first 3 weeks involved a lot of crying, but as soon as mommy or daddy left, she felt super comfortable with Wendy, and would not even leave her side for lunch and would follow her into the teachers' lunch room!  But Wendy was patient and kind and made our daughter feel like she was in a second home.  To this day whenever we ask our daughter who her who her favorite teacher is, she always says "Miss Wendy"!

Wendy is a phenomenal Early Childhood teacher and Montessori leader. Her knowledge and understanding of children and families is respectful, open and filled with kindness. She leads with grace, courtesy, tenderness and a profound sense of community. Children thrive within Wendy’s care and school environment.

I am so impressed by shining star. Richard is thorough, responsive, kind, and truly goes above and beyond. I toured last year and the center was immaculate and well organized into stations. The daycare felt very safe with great natural light. The teachers were warm and children were happy. The only reason I did not enroll my daughter was due to needing slightly later/ longer hours. I cannot explain how much Shining Star worked with me and tried to accommodate my every need. I have nothing but respect and positive feelings for this school. I recommend this school with the highest regard!

We found Shining Star a week after a really terrible 2-day experience at a home-based daycare for our then almost 2 year old daughter (you can read about our experience at that daycare in my reviews).  The school was recommended to us by a mom we had just met at a local park, and she had shared with us that her ~1.5 year old son was enjoying it and thriving at the school.  We considered several options which included two other home based daycares, TinySchool, Bright Horizons -- and ultimately decided to go with Shining Star after much deliberation and vetting of our options.  During the tour, we saw the space, observed the kids with the teacher, and importantly Richard had assured us that they would help support our daughter&#39;s transition to the school, and that it was expected that it could take several weeks for a child to feel comfortable.  He even noted that a second teacher would be there during our daughter&#39;s first week in case extra care and attention were needed for her.  This was really important to us, again, given the terrible experience we had just had. As expected, the first few days were hard.  Dropoff was hard and she also cried during the day, but I really appreciated that the school helped to support her through this and kept telling us it was normal and letting us know when she showed signs of feeling more secure there.  Our daughter would cry hysterically and they would give her the space to just be (eg she preferred eating on the floor and not at the table with the other kids, and she was allowed to do that until she felt ready herself a few weeks later to join them at the table).  During this time, we got zero frantic texts or calls -- and after about 2 weeks, there was no more crying and we could consider her relatively adjusted (what a relief for us considering the terrible experience we had had previously at the home-based daycare).   Fast forward several months now, and our daughter enjoys going to school.  She is still her fun, playful self after school (which sadly was not the case after just 1.5 days at the home-based daycare).  She has learned a ton (ABCs, counting, letter and number recognition, she can hold a pencil properly, and her speech/vocabulary has exploded).  The teachers are so kind (eg Ms Xing gave us a thermos to take home to use for our daughter&#39;s school meals after noticing that her lunches are always cold in the bento box that we had been using), caring, and help her to feel safe and looked after.  They have supported her potty learning as well. The class is relatively small now, and all the kids really take to each other and to the teacher.  It&#39;s always fun for us to see them all together be silly and energetic at pickup and dropoff. A plus as well is how easy it is to communicate directly with Richard. He is responsive on text and quick to reply to emails.   The school is just super understanding, and I have a soft spot for it since they really do care about the children.  Our daughter leaves school happy and goes to school happy too.  I could not recommend it enough!

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