Welcome to Family Affair Child Care Centers, whose founders have proudly served the greater Chicagoland area for 40 years with exceptional education for children from birth to 12 years old, using small class ratios and teachers who stay with your child year after year for the first 3 years to provide continuity of care. Our degreed staff provides expert training in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through warm play environments and a curriculum designed for school readiness.
Schedule a Tour → Explore Our Programs
Five programs, one curriculum, and teachers who stay with your child from the infant room to the kindergarten door.
01Our infant program offers a nurturing, safe and loving environment. We maintain a 1:4 ratio in our infant program. Teachers use the Creative Curriculum® and the National Early Learning Guidelines to plan age-appropriate individualized experiences for each child.
02Our Family Affair program embraces the curious toddler while maintaining a 1:5 teacher-to-child ratio. Toddlers are becoming more comfortable in their development and are interested in trying so many new tasks. Our teachers are prepared to nurture each child’s developing desire to explore and learn in an appropriate manner.
Teachers in the toddler classrooms have an advantage: they have already bonded and built relationships with these children since infancy.
03Our program for two-year-old children maintains a ratio of 1:8. Teachers work diligently to ensure that the children are developing properly, in preparation for entering the Preschool program.
The children continue to receive individualized care from caregivers they have been with since infancy.
04Our preschool program is geared towards ensuring that children are ready to succeed and eager to learn when they leave for Kindergarten. Classrooms are set up with interest areas that offer opportunities for teachers to teach content as children explore materials independently or in groups throughout the day.
Teaching strategies are tailored to children’s ages, developmental capacities, language and culture, and abilities or disabilities. Children are exposed to rich vocabulary daily through stories and lots of experiences, using language that will better enable them to learn to read, write and understand written and oral language.
Through strategic lesson planning, teachers create opportunities for children to communicate, interact, explore and engage in activities that are active and quiet, social and individual, creative and planned, routine and flexible, and both teacher-directed and child-initiated — according to each child’s own needs and desires. That is what leads to meeting the school readiness goals.
05The school-age program provides before and after school and summer care for children, typically aged 5 (in kindergarten) through 12 years of age. The program provides opportunities for assistance with completing homework and reading. There are structured indoor/outdoor games, and free play to balance the regular day. There are many opportunities for arts and crafts, science projects, technology, and field trips. Children will have the opportunities to enjoy available breakfasts, lunch and snacks.
Every Family Affair center is designed to the same standard — low ratios, teachers who stay, and calm, purposeful classrooms — so children, families, and teachers grow together from the very first day.
Every Family Affair classroom runs the Creative Curriculum®, aligned to the National Early Learning Guidelines. Teachers plan individually for each child rather than for the room, and they carry those plans forward as the child moves up.
That is what makes the continuity real rather than a talking point: the person writing a four-year-old’s plan is often the person who wrote their plan at eighteen months.
Schedule a Tour →Beyond the five core programs, centers can offer optional programming that extends what families get.
Every Family Affair center comes with one teacher who never calls in sick. Hootie turns up for story time, ribbon cuttings, and the first-day nerves — the friendly face on a brand parents are trusting with something irreplaceable.
Classroom framework
Curriculum alignment
Child care licensing
National accreditation
Nutrition program
Accreditation shown reflects our founding center in Illinois. Each Family Affair location is licensed by its own state’s child care licensing agency.
Find the Family Affair center nearest you, or schedule a tour and see a classroom in person. Our teachers would love to meet your family and answer your questions.
