Imagina Menlo Daycare - Menlo Park, California

Sofia Wilson

We are so happy to have our son at Imagina Menlo with Maria and Oscar. Maria and Oscar create a loving, warm, and enriching experience for the kids, and dropping off our son in the morning feels like we're leaving him with extended family members. They are passionate about their work, constantly redecorating their space to captivate interest of the children, and update their curriculum seasonally based on early childhood best practices. In less than 4 months, our son went from not speaking to speaking fully in both Spanish and English. He sings, counts, and can identify colors in Spanish, and this is all because of Maria & Oscar. I highly recommend Imagina Menlo for families looking for a warm, enriching Spanish immersion experience for their young children.

Sumi Hachmann

We highly recommend Imagina Menlo daycare. Our daughter has been going there since she was 7 months old, and we have been so impressed by the wonderful care she receives. Maria and Oscar provide a warm, nurturing, and playful environment. We were worried about putting our baby in daycare, especially since we had nannies for both our older kids, but Imagina Menlo has exceeded our expectations. Our baby is able to nap there, she drinks her bottles and Maria was able to support my continued breastfeeding, and now she is eating food there as well. Maria is very competent and confident with her care and was able to figure out the napping, eating, soothing, and schedule. She also listens to us and takes into account our wishes. I feel like the intimate environment is the best of both worlds, in terms of small group ratios and care but also stimulation and activity with other kids. Our daughter is thriving there!

Triet Nguyen

This is a great daycare! We have both our son (3.5) and daughter (1.5) there. My son has been there for almost 2 years and my daughter will continue next year as well. This is a Spanish immersion program that is family operated and is licensed. Maria is attentive and personal. Both kids have grown so much and love going to school. They remember all their classmates' names. My son knows well over 50 Spanish words and we don't speak it at home. It is play based and I feel like the kids are growing and learning every day.

Jenny Yuen

Our son has gone to this daycare since he's 8 months and loves it. It has a large backyard with beautiful toys that create a safe and enriching space. The owners are also very experienced taking care of kids. I've found they follow a lot of the same setups I see at Stanford's bing nursery school such as their play stations, newspaper and variety of materials.

My son is very independent and at some point would say all the sounds of animals. He also really seems to gravitate towards letters. Maria, the owner once told me if I am interested in, I can tell him what letters sound like when he sees them in signs. I have 3 kids and she's the first educator that has noticed how my kids tend to like letters and numbers and expanded on that. Her amount of experience is very vast and I'm glad we could find that in a local daycare.

Valeria Nikolaenko

We absolutely love this daycare! It gives us such a peace of mind. I know my son loves it there: the moment the door of our house opens in the morning he rushes through eager to be taken there. But he is also happy to see me in the evening when I come to pick him up, he is always happy there. Maria and her team create such a loving environment, it feels like second home. My son started going when he was 5 months old. Maria and her team were very accommodating - I was bringing pumped milk for him for half a year and they handled it well. After 1 year, they started feeding him with their home-cooked meals. They taught him the schedule, so he started to sleep at certain hours of the day, which I was super grateful for. The toys that they have are incredible most are Montessori-style. They read to kids a lot - so my 1 year old takes a book at home and sits with it, turning pages by himself. They taught him to share, so every single time he is given some snack - he shares with everybody around. There is nothing to wish for. The daycare is in Spanish (it is run by a family from Spain), but the kid is exposed to both Spanish and English, and our kid has no problem switching between different languages in different environments.

This daycare was recommended to me by a friend, who had both her children there from half a year till they turn 3 years old.

Jessica Cox