Urban Child Academy

As good as it gets. Amazing staff. Fantastic environment. Had two kids here for two years each. Wouldn’t have wanted them anywhere else.

Just a quick shout out to my favorite women in all of Chicago, the teachers at Urban Child Academy.
My daughter has attended Urban Child for a couple of years now and we love it. There is just nothing that I have found like it. The whole family feels like it is our school, built for our daughter.
The teachers care about their students and spend a lot of time building really fun lesson plans. The school lets them do it by keeping the classroom ratios low. We just received our biannual assessment report which is always so detailed and really helps us understand our daughter’s development so much better than we would without it. The funny thing is that while they are so professional and focused on child development, every day I drop her off and feel like I might as well be taking her to my mom’s house. It feels that safe and normal.
As a mom I love seeing their monthly investigations and love hearing about each and every day. I check her student page on the website whenever I need a pick me up. They have way more fun each day than I do.
I think that I am writing this because I am starting to seriously think about where we will go when preschool ends next year. I am dreading having to leave and have no idea what elementary school could possibly compare.

Urban Child is pretty perfect in every way. We loved how they combine learning and nurturing. I really liked that every child has its own little tot cot, and how they take a nap after lunch so they are happy and well rested when they get home. It is an urban school and they explore the city as much as they can. I loved running into my children while at the farmers market or at a local playground. Our whole family adored the teachers, each and every one of them are warm and very knowledgeable. We feel so fortunate to have been able to be a part of the Urban Child family.

Alright, I don’t understand Unilocal reviews because they filtered my last one about this school (Jordan). my children went here so that is really odd. However, I do not think it is appropriate to change my star rating from 4 to 5 even if it was filtered!!! I think that is unethical on Unilocal part and starts to make their reviews unreliable. Anyway, I stand by my review of this school. Wish I would’ve kept my children there till JK.

Fair warning: I am not normally a gusher (I swear, just read my other reviews) but this one is too near and dear to my heart. So prepare for some Unilocal love.
I LOVE THIS SCHOOL. The world can be a big dark scary place, especially when you are a toddler. But Urban Child has touched my children and my family in ways I could not have imagined. The staff and school are a part of our family now and forever.
You can see it and feel it from the day you take the tour of the school. It’s like the home we all wish we had right in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast. They even kept the original fireplaces which just makes me feel like it’s my girls’ home away from home. They have a small playground and very cool, uniquely styled classrooms that take advantage of the historic buildings’ character.
But while the facilities are awesome, it is a school. So it is the teachers that really make it work. And you can see how incredible they are from day one. My children are like most siblings, I think: totally different from each other! One was ready to jump into the classroom activities from day one and the other has major separation anxiety if she loses sight of me for even a minute. But NOT when they are at school. It is the one place I have to be a little bit jealous of another adult. My girls adore their teachers. But I cannot actually be jealous because while my girls love their teachers to death, so do I. I think we have been through every teacher in the school by now and every year I leave one thinking that I will never find a teacher we love so much again. Then I meet the next one and she is every bit as amazing in her own way, with her own ideas and teaching style. They are so obviously professionals with a wealth of experience and training. I ask them all the time about things large and small when it comes to taking care of my girls developmental needs or how to handle an issue at home. And the answers they give are always spot on. They really understand what’s going on in the minds of their students.
I am not kidding when I say that my only problem with Urban Child is that they stop at preK. I truly wish they offered at least kindergarten if not a full elementary school. What the staff at this school has built right in the middle of my neighborhood is too awesome for a mere review to contain.

Let me start by saying the my ex-​wife and I agree on very nearly nothing at all. Except things involving our wonderful, precocious, fabulous and in-​every-​way-​perfect young daughter (okay, maybe I’m a little biased but that’s what dad’s do!)
So finding Urban Child Academy was a dream come true. I spend a lot of time traveling for work and my ex also works part-​time. So we knew we had to take the plunge into nannies or daycare. I swear that between the two of us we looked at 25 different places in Chicago. We found about 3 we liked at all. Most of them felt very institutional. None of them compared to Urban Child.
Starting with the building itself, what the owners have done to transform this place from two old row houses into a school is nothing short of magical. The building looks like it was always meant to be a homey little preschool amidst the hustle and bustle of Streeterville. Perfect for us since they are also right next to the Red Line stop. They have outdoor space which, while small, is still just plain awesome in the middle of the city (edit: I just spent the evening out there with my little girl; small maybe but fun — they’ve added a climbing wall and apparently a water wall for the spring!!). The fun part is that each classroom is like it’s own little world when compared to each of the others. This year they’ve apparently even added a community space where parents like me can come dry off in the winter months before we hit the elements once more. I am looking forward to trying that out in February.
Then there’s the teachers. I am a high-​energy person, but I could never do what these ladies do on a daily basis. They bring the most amazing energy and enthusiasm to work with them each day. If we all dealt with people like this each day, the world would truly be a better place. And the cool stuff they are teaching our daughter is unbelievable. Preschool has come a long way since I grew up. They make me wish I could attend preschool again.

Our daughter started at Urban Child shortly after her 2^nd birthday. At the time, I was apprehensive about putting her in school/​daycare because, up to that point, she had only been cared for by family (me, grandma and her aunt). I researched several daycare options. Urban Child outshined the others by far, and I was very excited when UCA offered my daughter a spot. My daugher is in the Toddler room, and her teachers are very caring, fun and conscientious. It is clear that they do their best to make sure she has a great day everyday she is there. From the time they took to help with her transtion from home to school to the weekly written reports we receive detailing her daily activities and eating/​sleeping/​restroom/​diaper habits, everything has been great. The door is always open to communicate with them, and, more than once, they have called me during the day to report on how my daughter was doing. In addition, on the one occassion that she became ill at school, they called me immediately, and we had her home in time for nap. But, the best part is that my daughter really loves Urban Child. On most days, when I pick her up, she tells me «I want to go back to school!» And, she stays with her beloved grandma two days a week, so that’s high praise.

We searched high and low for the perfect daycare for our daughter. Our friends (who are still at Urban and have been since it opened and still love it in the 2−3s room) recommended it to us. We started her at 15 months and probably toured about 8 places (what were considered the best of the best, we were not bargain shopping). It was hard to find an OUTSTANDING place that took kids part time. But we found it at Urban Child! We’ve been there about 9 months and each day we love it more. It has SUCH a preschool (as opposed to daycare) vibe, and that is exactly how the administration and staff prepares the children’s schedule and lesson plans. With learning in mind, but with also a focus on fun. The staff is very well-​educated, well-​treated and extremely loving. They really do love these kids, I know my daughter’s lead teacher cries when a child moves to the suburbs and leaves. They really try to become a part of your family and care deeply about your child (this is not just a job for them), which is so important for the little ones. Each week they have different toddler «investigations» and they are really fun for the children and educational as well. I also like that the school is pretty diverse, especially given its location and comparable schools north of the loop. In my daughter’s class, I’d say almost ½ (maybe ¹⁄₃) of the kids are diverse, which is really important to us. Retention (both in the staff and the students) is pretty high and the school runs democratically and kindly. The owners listen to parents and provide insightful and intelligent responses. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like more honest information. I really have nothing negative to say, this place is as good as it gets!