Description: Whales, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Child Care Center is a full service, licensed Child Care center that offers after school care in Lewisberry Etters, Newberrytown, Fishing Creek. We have 20 well trained staff members, five of whom have four-year degrees. We offer full and part time care for babies from 6 weeks old to school age children up to 12 years old, between the hours of 6:30 AM and 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday. We offer a Preschool Program, a Kindergarten Program, a Before-School Program, an After-School Program, a Before-and-After-School Program and a Summer-Program.
We have a baby room with only four babies, unlike many large New Cumberland daycare centers which have as many as 12 to 16 babies in one room. Our Young toddler room has between 10 and 12 children between the ages of 1 and 2 years and has three staff members. Our Older Toddler Room has between 12 and 18 children between the ages of 2 to 3 years and has three to four staff members. Our Center serves Etters, Newberrytown, York Haven, Lewisberry and Fishing Creek childcare and has three Preschool Rooms. The First two are limited to 10 children each, and are used as a transition between the Toddler Rooms and a more classroom like environment. The final Preschool Room is for children who will be attending Kindergarten the following year and is run like a classroom at school, with a maximum of 24 children. Unlike a classroom at school, our large Preschool Room has Two Teachers with Elementary Education Degrees, one of which has ten years teaching experience and the other has over twenty. These two teachers also have an assistant. In this way, we are able to fully prepare your child for school.
We have a Kindergarten Program with between 12 and 18 children and two staff members. The Kindergarten children have their own building with two separate floors. The first floor is set up as a recreation room area with everything from pool and ping-pong, to air-hockey and skee-ball. The second floor is set up as a classroom environment with two large classrooms and a computer resource area. The entire third floor of this building is our storage for education and craft resources, which all the staff access. We have more in resources in this area than are typically stored at ten of our competitors combined.
We have two full size school buses with which we transport our kindergarteners and school age children to and from school. We also use these buses to go on field trips throughout the year with all our children four years and older. We use our school buses to transport our school age children in our School Age Summer Program on four to five field trips per week (see the list of field trips scheduled for 2012 under the Summer Program tab above). You will also notice that preschool children four years and older go on approximately two field trips each week to parks all summer long.
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I am giving this center 2 stars due to the teachers being well loved by my children and due to the lower costs compared to other centers. The owners, Bill in particular, are incredibly unprofessional. He treats his staff with complete disrespect and does so in front of the children. He loves to rave about his home cooked meals, which is fine, but every day the kids are eating cake, cookies the size of a face, ice cream, candy, etc. There was ZERO compliance with state regulations during COVID. Nobody was masked, staff or children, but unfortunately the visits were announced so they would mask when being observed. The center had to shut down for a week due to COVID spreading, then parents received a long, scathing email about not paying for that week, citing new floors, staff raises, etc. and essentially blaming parents for financial struggles of the center. The final straw was when someone left a 1 star review of the center and Bill gave all the parents a 4 page letter with the review and individual’s name, requesting everyone leave them a 5 star review and encouraging whomever wanted to come in and ask to see this individual’s financial records. I would NOT recommend this place.
We enrolled my child a couple of months after we moved to the area. This is his first daycare experience and it's been nothing but positive. Thanks to the help of the staff, he's potty trained, he's speaking better, and he's learning valuable socialization skills that he wouldn't otherwise have gotten being an only child. The staff, Bill and Judy are all friendly and personable and Bill even makes food from scratch for the kids and staff. I would definitely recommend sending your child here if you want to see them thrive.
This place is absolutely ridiculous! The owners are completely incompetent of running a center, and completely clueless. The owner Bill walks around swearing and yelling and screaming at his wife, and employees all day every day. They don’t go with state regulations, and treat employees absolutely horribly.
Very poor communication. The security for the door is most days left open and anyone can enter. The owners punishes the children by putting the child in time out for over an hour at a time. Complete joke. I would never put your children here. Owners discriminates with COVID-19 and not one person wears masks. The Owner does not wear any hair net while cooking food. Very unsanitary.
Running a preschool and daycare of this magnitude is like running a school. When someone can house over 100 kids from 1 yr old to 12 years old, and you can do it successfully, you know what you are doing. Our son has been with WS&PDT for about 6 months. He loves it! They have 2 full size school buses for weekly trips (daily trips during the summer for the bigger kids). 2 different outdoor play areas, 8+ different age group areas in 2 buildings, keypad entry doors, and a lot more. Bill and Judy Whale are, simply put, awesome owners. They will help you with anything you need, anytime. The are very understanding, easy going people. They have just as much, if not more experience working with school aged children than your average teacher. Every day isn't perfect like we all wish it could be, but this is reality. Kids misbehave, teachers have personal issues that effect their days, kids get sick, kids get hurt, mistakes happen and we just have to remember, it's all part of life. Every day, we receive a handwritten daily report of our son's day( behavior, attitude, cooperation, did they sleep, how did they eat) which we believe is very informative. My wife and I would "Highly Recommend" this preschool/daycare to anyone in the area. If you want your child taken care of in a friendly and caring environment, you've found the right place. Always remember, 20 good reviews outweigh 1 bad review. There is always a sour grape in the bag.
I have had nothing but great experiences with this daycare! I have heard horrible stories from friends with kids In daycare and while I searched for a daycare I was a nervous wreck. This is the daycare my husband and I picked for our kids and let me know say I couldn't have made a better pick. They are more accommodating than they need to and are very fair! Some may have a negative perspective on them, but let's face it, not everyone is perfect and people do make mistakes but as far as a daycare, it does not get better than Whales, snails and puppy dog tails. So taking a second to acknowledge The last negative comment, ang k. If it was so bad, why did you use them for 18 months? Couldn't have been that bad! Keep up the great work Bill, Judy and staff. I know for a fact my family appreciates everything you guys do for my family.
My child attended this daycare for a total of 18 months. There were a series of events that gave me concern culminating with the following: 1) making my child go through the trash at a public bowling alley because another child accused him of throwing his bowling shoes away. He hadn’t. When I asked the co-owner (Judy Whale) about it, her response was “it’s not like he was punished for it”, and 2) children (6 yrs of age and younger) playing games on tablets that are not age appropriate (rated T). The co-owner Bill Whale’s response “I’m not going to sanitize my program for 1 child”. That’s their level of care for your child. I complained about these events (and others) on a Tuesday. On Wednesday we were informed that we would have to find a new daycare by Monday. Bill Whale loves to toot his horn about the videos he makes of the children and gives to the families. The one he provided to us in Dec. 2016 included a song with the F word and the N word…
This place is awesome, Always activities to do and the little ones as well as the older ones are always being looked after. Some places let them play and don't watch them, not here, they are constantly watching them and caring for them... Oh and the homecooked meals are out of this world, they spare no expense in the meals they provide and the homemade snacks as well...
The daycare is very clean, the teachers are nice, but the director is very rude and she discriminates against children with learning disabilities. The daycare is not secure, so just anyone can walk in which is scary. I wouldnt recommend this daycare.