Classes
Now in its 10th year, A Playdate everyday is an onsite afterschool enrichment program teaching social skills. With playdates at the heart of our program, we focus on engaging the whole child through a nurturing, child-centered approach that meets every student’s individual needs. A Playdate Everyday provides a safe, unique, highly-supervised experience within a fun, relaxed, no-tech environment.
Playdates
We call it "friendship fostering," constructively guiding—through playdates and a carefully designed curriculum—the natural process of making friends, being a friend, and learning teamwork. These daily playdates are the mainstay of our program, giving your child a supervised opportunity to socialize with a diverse group of peers. Every day.
Playdates are an important part of child rearing but, as any parent knows, they can be difficult to schedule. We solve that problem, so everyone wins. As one parent said, "My son Josh absolutely loves the program. I often come to pick him up and he doesn’t want to leave." '10 more minutes mom, please!!!' he'll plead."
Daily Enrichment Activities
From art and music to improv and dance to sign language and circle time. Each day, we build on our social development exercises with a range of activities that foster socialization and improve social skills. Additionally, we host periodic events, mixers and collaborative art shows, culminating in an end-of-the-year party showcasing the social skills learned.
Our Staff
We have a robust training program for our instructors.
Our well trained staff undergoes a robust training program and rigorous screening process, including thorough background checks. Parents also appreciate our low teacher to student ratio and the fact that we have little to no staff turnover.
Mallory Echevarria
Mallory has been working with A Playdate Everyday for seven years, and is also on her second year as a teacher's assistant at Pre-K280. She is currently a student at the College of Staten Island, pursuing her bachelors in early childhood education. She has a natural love of working with children and enjoys watching them bloom into their own personalities!
Aja Ellis
Aja graduated from NYU this year receiving her bachelor's degree in Biology with an emphasis on a pre-health track. She is passionate about climate injustice and human rights work. She is also a multi-medium artist who loves to learn new ways to express creativity. This is her fourth year at A Playdate Everyday and she is enjoying meeting all the new lovely friends!
Meaghan Kelly, IEP coordinator
Meaghan graduated from college this past year with her Bachelor's degree in Psychology. She has always had a passion for working with children, and prides herself in her ability to do so. This is her sixth year working with A Playdate Everyday, and she is enjoying getting to know all the new friendly faces at K280!
Donatella Bavaro, 3K coordinator
This is Donatella's fourth year at A Playdate Everyday in K-280. She has an associates degree in Criminal Justice and is pursuing a bachelors in the same field with minors in psychology and English. She has a passion for working with children and seeing how well their social skills develop throughout their time in the program.
Jennifer Hopkins
Jennifer is the director and founder of A Playdate Everyday and has been in the afterschool field for the past 11 years. In 2011, she became the Pre-k and Kindergarten afterschool director at PS 154, and brought the Playdate Everyday program to K280 in 2016.
With over 30 years of experience as an early childhood educator, Jennifer created the Playdate program because she has observed that socially, young children need specific detailed guidance on how to approach others, include others, and show responsibility towards those on the outskirts.
Jennifer is also a licensed Music Together teacher, a former professional dancer, and the mother of three wonderful daughters.
Connecting Families
We believe children should have the opportunity to expand their school friendships outside of our program. So we train our staff in a specific curriculum based on observations made of each child. With this information, our staff can then work with parents to facilitate playdates outside of school, connecting them with other families. This matchmaking program reinforces friendships outside of the school curriculum and is very popular with parents and children alike.
"My daughter participated in A Playdate Everyday after school a couple of years ago at K280. The program was amazing for her social development then, but the skills my daughter learned there became invaluable during the pandemic. After emerging from lockdown in 2020, my daughter knew exactly what to do when playing with kids again. She remembered, and even referred to, lessons on asking other kids to play, on compromising when playing, and so much more! I would recommend this thoughtful and fun program to all families!"
