Daycares in Waterloo With Outdoor Play Areas
The Waterloo daycare most built around the outdoors is Emmanuel at Brighton Child Care Centre on Noecker Street, a certified Forest and Nature School since 2015 whose educators aim to be outside as much as possible in all weather, for children from 18 months. For a baby, the Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association on Erb St W takes children from birth and gives each of its four buildings its own fenced yard of sand, logs and turf with slides, tunnels and climbers.
Every centre here has an outdoor space it describes, so the decision usually turns on two other things. The first is how young a child it will take: four centres start from birth or a few months, and the other four begin at 18 months. The second is the length of the day, which runs from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm at three centres, 7:30 to 5:30 at three more, and only half a day at the Waterloo Co-operative Preschool.
Our picks
- A child who wants to be outside in any weather: Emmanuel at Brighton Child Care Centre. A certified Forest and Nature School where children use real tools, build forts and tend garden plots.
- An infant who will spend a lot of time outdoors: Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association. Takes children from birth, with mud kitchens, tongue drums set into the sand and covered pavilions for eating and resting outside.
- Parents with a long workday: Kids & Company Tech Town. Open 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, with a naturalistic playground of wood tunnels, stumps and a sandbox backing onto green space.
- Siblings of different ages: RisingOaks Early Learning - St. Nicholas. Rooms run from 18 months through preschool and on to before and after school care up to age 12.
- Part-time care rather than full days: Waterloo Co-operative Preschool. Half-day classes on three mornings or two afternoons, no toilet training required, and a playground with a tricycle roadway and bridge.
At a glance
| Option | Address | Ages Served | Youngest Age (months) | Outdoor Play | Hours | Operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 65 Noecker Street, Waterloo, ONsource | Toddler to Preschoolsource | 18source | Certified Forest and Nature School; outside as much as possible in all weathersource | Monday to Friday, 7:30 am-5:30 pmsource | Non-profit charitysource | |
| 340 Hagey Boulevard, Suite 105, Waterloo, ON N2L 6R6source | Toddler to Preschoolsource | 18source | Playground with open space, natural wood tunnels and stumps, and a sandboxsource | 7:00 am - 6:00 pmsource | Multi-site operatorsource | |
| 200 Columbia Street West, Waterloo, ON N2L 0A7source | Infant to Preschoolsource | 0source | Children play outside daily in a designated playground, or go for a walksource | Monday to Friday, 7:30AM - 5:30PMsource | Non-profit charitysource | |
| 145 Lincoln Road, Waterloo, ON N2J 2N8source | Infant to Preschoolsource | 3source | Dynamic, secure and creative outdoor space for gross motor playsource | 7:00 am to 6:00 pmsource | Non-profit charitysource | |
| 525 Laurelwood Drive, Waterloo, ON N2V 2N1source | Toddler to School-agesource | 18source | Dynamic, secure and creative outdoor space for gross motor playsource | 7:00am - 6:00pmsource | Non-profit charitysource | |
| 2415 University Avenue East, Waterloo, ONsource | Infant to Preschoolsource | Outdoor play and nature exploration are essential components of the curriculumsource | Non-profit charitysource | |||
| 368 Erb St W, Waterloo, ONsource | Infant to Preschoolsource | 0source | Fenced yard at each of four buildings: sand, logs and turf with slides, tunnels and climberssource | Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.source | Non-profit charitysource | |
| 22 Bridgeport Road West, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y3source | Toddler to Preschoolsource | 18source | Playground with a roadway and bridge for tricycles, shade, logs, tunnel and slidesource | Half-day classes: three mornings or two afternoonssource | Parent co-operativesource |
Which centres take babies
Four centres have an infant room. Bright Starts Co-operative Early Learning Centre and the Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association both start from birth, RisingOaks Early Learning on Lincoln Road starts at three months, and Creative Beginnings on University Avenue runs an infant program for birth to 18 months.
The other four begin at 18 months: Emmanuel at Brighton, Kids & Company Tech Town, RisingOaks St. Nicholas and the Co-operative Preschool. If your child is under a year and a half, that halves the list before outdoor space comes into it.
Opening hours and the commute
Kids & Company Tech Town and both RisingOaks centres open at 7:00 am and close at 6:00 pm. Emmanuel, Bright Starts and the Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association run 7:30 to 5:30, and Bright Starts also closes whenever the University of Waterloo does. Creative Beginnings does not publish hours for its University Avenue site, so ask.
How much each centre says about its yard
The Outdoor Play column is each centre's own description, and they are not equally specific. The Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association inventories its yards down to the loose parts, and Kids & Company describes open ground, tunnels, stumps and a sandbox next to green space where geese and hawks turn up. Bright Starts says only that children go out daily to a designated playground or for a walk, using the multi-purpose room and hallways for active play in bad weather.
The two RisingOaks centres share one organization-wide description, so the column cannot tell them apart. Their own photos and learning stories do: a mud day and a vegetable patch at Lincoln Road, log walking and tree climbing at St. Nicholas. The Co-operative Preschool's playground description comes from a parent testimonial on its site rather than the preschool's own words.
The options in detail
Emmanuel at Brighton Child Care Centre
A certified Forest and Nature School since 2015, Emmanuel runs out of the former Brighton Public School on Noecker Street, and its curriculum is built around natural outdoor play spaces rather than a conventional playground. Educators aim to be outside as much as they can in all weather, with children using real tools, building forts, and looking after garden plots and the wildlife that visits them. It takes children from 18 months to five years, plus a summer camp for ages 4 to 10, so families needing infant care will have to look elsewhere.
Kids & Company Tech Town
Part of a national operator with more than 100 centres, Tech Town sits in the R+T Park on the University of Waterloo's north campus and is licensed for 104 children across eight classrooms, which makes it the largest centre on this list. Its playground is a quiet, naturalistic one: open ground for running, wood tunnels and stumps, and a sandbox, backing onto green space where geese and hawks turn up. It opens at 7:00 am and runs to 6:00 pm, the longest day here, but it starts at 18 months, so it is not an option for babies.
Bright Starts Co-operative Early Learning Centre
Bright Starts opened in 2014 by amalgamating three long-standing University of Waterloo child care centres, and sits on the university's north campus behind the Optometry building at Columbia and Hagey. It is a nonprofit and a registered charity, and one of the few centres here that takes babies from birth through to preschool. Children go outside daily in a designated playground or head out on foot or in strollers, with the multi-purpose room and hallways used for gross motor play when the weather is bad. Its day is shorter than most, 7:30 am to 5:30 pm, and it closes whenever the university does.
RisingOaks Early Learning - Lincoln Road
One of nine RisingOaks centres across Waterloo Region and, by the operator's own account, one of the few in the region with an infant room, taking babies from three months. It has been open since 2004 and draws families from across Kitchener-Waterloo to infant, toddler and preschool rooms running 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. RisingOaks describes its outdoor space as dynamic, secure and creative, and the centre's own learning stories are full of sandbox, mud and garden play, including a mud day and a vegetable patch the toddlers pick from.
RisingOaks Early Learning - St. Nicholas
A school-based RisingOaks centre inside St. Nicholas Catholic Elementary School, in the Laurelwood neighbourhood of north-west Waterloo, open since 2001. It covers a much wider age span than most centres here, from toddlers at 18 months through preschool and on to before and after school care to age 12, which makes it worth a look for families with children at different stages. There is no infant room. Its photo gallery leans hard on the outdoors: children walking logs, climbing trees and playing in mud.
Creative Beginnings Early Learning and Care - University Avenue
The Waterloo site of a non-profit charitable operator that also runs centres in Baden and Elmira. The program is play-based and leans on the outdoors: outdoor play and nature exploration are described as essential parts of the curriculum, tied to a stated commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainable practice. It runs infant, toddler and preschool rooms with published educator ratios, and it is one of the few operators in the region that publishes its daily fees openly rather than asking you to call.
Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association
A non-profit charity that has run daycare in Waterloo since the mid-1980s, and the centre on this list that documents its outdoor space in the most detail. It runs four buildings, each with its own fully fenced yard mixing sand, logs and turf with slides, tunnels and climbers, plus mud kitchens, chalkboards, loose parts like tires and stumps, tongue drums set into the sand, and covered pavilions so children can eat and rest outside. The main building on Erb Street West is a three-storey facility with a large outdoor space, and the centre takes children from birth to five.
Waterloo Co-operative Preschool
Not a full-day daycare but a parent-run co-operative preschool near uptown Waterloo, housed at Emmanuel United Church on Bridgeport Road West. Programs are half-day: a two-day toddler class for 18 to 30 months, and morning or afternoon preschool classes for children 30 months and up, with toilet training not required for either. That makes it a fit for families who do not need full-day coverage, and parents get the option of joining the classroom once a month. Its outdoor space is the feature parents single out, with a small roadway and bridge for tricycles, shade, and logs, a tunnel and a slide.
How we researched this
This page covers licensed centres in the City of Waterloo, Ontario, and a centre was included only where its own website describes its outdoor space. That left out Butterfly Learning Centre, whose site says nothing about outdoor play, and SimplySmart Child Care Centre & Montessori, whose only outdoor mention is a testimonial not tied to the Waterloo site. Millen Woods and Westvale Child Care Centres call their playgrounds outdoor classrooms, with at least two hours outside a day, but their operator publishes no hours, age groups or photos for either site on its own. Pluto Day Care's site could not be read, the YMCA's Just for Kids centre has no reachable page of its own, Conestoga College's newcomer children's centre is open only to families in its language program, and licensed home child care is outside a centre-to-centre comparison.
Fees are not compared, because under Ontario's CWELCC agreement participating centres charge close to the same daily fee; Creative Beginnings, which publishes its rates, lists $22 a day across infant, toddler and preschool. Its University Avenue site states no hours and no number for its youngest age, so those cells are empty. The Waterloo Infant Toddler Daycare Association's hours come from a parent handbook last updated in October 2017. RisingOaks notes that few centres in the region have an infant room, so ask each centre about openings for your child's age, and confirm hours for the specific site.