Miss Catherine’s Creative Learning Center

I’ve lived in the Gunbarrel neighborhood for a few years and thought that Ms. Catherine’s would be a natural match as it is so close to our home. I spoke with the Director, letting her know that I need care three days each week and she said she could accommodate that so I made an appointment to take a tour. As soon as I walked in it didn’t feel right, Ms. Catherine looked us up and down from the very beginning and seemed suspicious of us. She led us into her office where she proceeded to tell us they couldn’t do the days we needed. This is understandable but a phone call would have been nice so we didn’t have to waste our time visiting. However because of the way she looked us up and down, I left with the feeling that we didn’t meet her typical Boulder parent profile and were denied.

My son started at Mrs Catherine’s as a 6 week old infant. We loved the infant center and the care and love our son received there. At the infant center, he played outside, went for walks in a stroller and even did artwork, songs and puppetry with the teachers.
As he grew up he moved to the Learning center, he was in the toddler classes and then moved through to preschool and pre-​kindergarten. He was potty trained in the 2 ½ year old room and had great experiences. He loved the teachers and they loved him. He learned his colors, and shapes and how to do puzzles and had a great time as a toddler and preschooler.
He was able to go to swimming lessons in the summer for 2 years and on fieldtrips to the county fair. He looked forward to all the class parties and school wide events like the popcicle party, Easter egg hunt, splash days, christmas programs, and visits from santa. He made many friendships starting as a young toddler and he still has many of these friendships today as he is now 5 ½ years old. Miss Catherine really has a great sense of community in her school and you can see it when families come together for events at the school.
The teachers really exhibit a great deal of longevity and almost all of the teachers my son had are still at the school.
He now is a Kindergartener and still talks about his time at Miss Catherine’s. He had a wonderful experience there and enjoyed 5 great years growing up at this school. He occasionally still comes for visits when he is off of school and looks forward to coming to visit.

Sadly, I’ve had to downgrade my review of Miss Catherine’s school after a disappointing response to our concerns that our child was being repeatedly injured by another child. We’ve elected to enroll our child elsewhere although we will miss the wonderful community created at Miss Catherine’s.

Our son goes here for daycare, and we’ve been wonderfully pleased with it. Since it’s not located in the heart of Boulder, we didn’t have to deal with any waitlists.
They have a chef onsite and provide breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. Our little guy eats really well there and the menu looks great all the time (they have a menu you can pick up at the beginning of each month). The teaching philosophy here is wonderful, and they are NAEYC certified. The kids do art projects, a music teacher comes once a week, and our son has amazed us with some of the things he has learned there (like counting and colors which we haven’t been good about teaching him ourselves). They take the kids outside each day (except for in extreme weather), and they have some great play structures outside. They also do a Christmas concert and have little events around holidays for the parents to attend (like 4pm on a Friday afternoon) such as Valentine’s Day cookies, 4^th of July popsicles, and Halloween walk to the local businesses in Gunbarrel Square.
We love all the teachers, and they are all so great about remembering names. We looked at the infant center long before we actually enrolled our son. When we came back a good 6months later to enroll him in the CLC, Miss Catherine distinctly remembered us and our son.
The place isn’t all too cheap, but definitely more reasonable than many others out there. And what you get for the cost, it’s so worth it!