Camas Early School
(208) 555-0163
Two young girls shaping coloured clay at a low table in a classroom, with a teacher and three other children working at a second table behind them.

14th & Hays · North End, Boise

You will know how the day went before you ask.

Four rooms, ten teachers, food cooked in our own kitchen, and a sheet in your hand every afternoon with what actually happened. Openings are posted on this page and we update them the day they change.

See this month’s openings Walk through a day

Daily sheet · Sunflower Room

Tue 14 · Miss Ordoñez

A filled-in daily sheet: meals eaten, a nap from twelve fifteen to two, three nappy changes, mood marked as good, and a handwritten line saying she carried the watering can all afternoon and would not let anyone else do it. MEALS BREAKFAST LUNCH ALL OF IT, TWICE NAP 12:15 — 2:00 1 H 45 M · ON HER OWN CHANGES 9:40 · 12:05 · 3:20 MOOD GOOD — SHORT WOBBLE AT 3 FROM THE ROOM She carried the watering can the whole afternoon and would not let anybody else have a turn. We negotiated.

Every child goes home with one of these, filled in by the person who was with them. It is not an app notification at 4:58 PM. It is a piece of paper you can read at a red light and stick on the fridge.

Rooms
4
Children, at capacity
52
Teachers
10, plus a cook
Longest-serving teacher
11 years
Open
7:15 AM – 5:45 PM
Closed
9 days a year
Outdoor time, minimum
90 min a day
01 — A Tuesday in the Sunflower Room

The whole day, so you can picture where they are at 10:30.

Times move by fifteen minutes either way depending on the children, which is the point. Nothing here is a bell schedule.

  1. Doors open, slow startBooks, puzzles and the quiet corner. Nobody is made to join anything before eight.
  2. Breakfast, at the table, togetherCooked here. The children set out the cups and clear their own plate, including the two-year-olds.
  3. Outside — and yes, in winterNinety minutes a day minimum, down to about fifteen degrees. Send boots; we have spares.
  4. Small groupsFour or five children with one teacher: clay, water, blocks, letters for the older room. This is where the day’s work happens.
  5. LunchOne menu, no separate “kid version”. Whatever the kitchen made, the adults eat it too, at the same tables.
  6. Nap or restCots for the little ones, books and a blanket for the ones who have grown out of it. Nobody is kept lying down for two hours pretending.
  7. Snack, then outside againThe second stretch outdoors is the one that makes bedtime easier, and every parent notices it by week two.
  8. Open play, and the sheets get writtenTeachers fill in the daily sheet while it is still fresh, in the room, not from memory at 5:40.
  9. Doors closeLate pickup happens; tell us and it is fine. Repeatedly and without telling us is a conversation, not a fine.
02 — Four rooms

Small on purpose, and the numbers are on the wall.

Our ratios are better than the state requires in every room. We print them by the door so you never have to ask, and so we can never quietly let them slip.

Willow

6 weeks – 12 months

Their own schedule, not ours. Bottles, sleep and food happen when each baby needs them, and that is written down every single time.

1:38 places

Aspen

12 – 24 months

Walking, climbing, carrying things that are too heavy. Language explodes in this room, so we talk constantly and narrate everything.

1:412 places

Sunflower

2 – 3 years

The clay, the water table and the first real friendships — along with the first real arguments, which we help them have properly.

1:616 places

Camas

3 – 5 years · pre-K

Letters, numbers and scissors, but mostly long uninterrupted projects. Children who leave here sit down and finish things.

1:816 places
03 — What they actually do all day

Real materials, and enough time to get lost in them.

A child's hand drawing on paper beside a glass jar packed with well-used crayons seen from above. The jar the violet came from
  • Things that leave a markCrayon, clay, paint, chalk, wet sand. Materials that push back and do not have an undo button.
  • Blocks of forty-five minutesLong enough to build something, knock it down and build it again. Fifteen-minute rotations teach children to stop caring.
  • Read to, every day, in a lapNot a screen with a story on it. In the pre-K room they start reading to each other, badly and proudly.
  • Jobs, from the age of twoSetting the table, watering, sweeping up their own sand. A two-year-old with a job is a two-year-old who is not climbing a shelf.
  • No screens. None.Not for calm-down time, not on Fridays, not for the rainy afternoon. If that sounds strict, it is the easiest rule we keep.
04 — The kitchen

One cook, one menu, and the adults eat it too.

Breakfast, lunch and two snacks are included and made here. This week, posted Monday morning and stuck to the door where you sign in:

Monday

Lentil soup

With bread and butter, apple slices, and cheese at snack.

Tuesday

Chicken and rice

Roast carrots, orange wedges, yoghurt in the afternoon.

Wednesday

Pasta, red sauce

Green beans, pear, and oatcakes at three.

Thursday

Bean and cheese

Soft tortillas, cucumber, banana bread the cook made.

Friday

Fish and potatoes

Peas, melon, popcorn at snack because it is Friday.

  • Allergies and diets, written on the wall of the kitchenEvery child with a restriction has their name and their list where the cook can see it while cooking, not in a folder in the office.
  • Nobody is made to finish a plateThey are asked to try one bite of the thing they are suspicious of. That is the whole policy, and it works far better than the alternative.
05 — Tuition

Published, because you should not have to call to find out.

Monthly, and it covers everything: all meals, nappies and wipes, sunscreen, the field trips and the family nights. There is no supply fee in September.

Willow · 6 wk – 12 mo

Infants

$1,540

a month, full time

The most expensive room anywhere, because one teacher is with three babies. Part time is not offered here — babies need the same faces every day.

Aspen & Sunflower · 1 – 3 yr

Toddlers

$1,285

a month, full time

  • Three days a week, $865
  • All meals and nappies included
  • Ten per cent off the second child

Camas · 3 – 5 yr

Pre-K

$1,140

a month, full time

School-year-only place, September to May, at $1,060. Summer runs separately and fills by March.

06 — Openings, as of this week

What is actually free, and what is honestly not.

We would rather tell you there is a nine-month wait than take a deposit and hope. If a room says full, it is full, and the waiting list moves in the order people joined it.

Willow · infantsFull — 9 mo wait
Aspen · 1–2 yr2 places — March
Sunflower · 2–3 yr1 place — now
Camas · pre-KFull — Sept
  • 1428 N 14th St, Boise, ID 83702The green door on the Hays side, not the main house door. Parking on 14th is two-hour but never full at drop-off.
  • (208) 555-0163Between 9:30 and 4:00 the office phone is answered by a person. Outside that we are with children, and the machine gets checked twice a day.
  • hello@camasearly.comSend the age and the month you need, and you get a straight answer about the list within a day.
  • Tours are Wednesdays, 10:00, forty minutesDuring the actual day, with actual children, and you will see the rooms mid-mess. That is the version worth seeing.
A child in a white long-sleeved top going down a bright orange slide in an outdoor playground. Ninety minutes, every day
Call about a place See tuition
07 — What parents ask on the tour

The awkward ones, answered first.

What happens when my child bites someone?

It happens, mostly between eighteen months and two and a half, and it is developmental rather than a character flaw. We stay with both children, we tell both families the same afternoon, and we look for the pattern — biting is almost always about being crowded, tired or unable to say a word yet. We do not name the other child to you, and we do not name yours to them.

How sick is too sick?

Fever over 100.4, vomiting, diarrhoea, or anything that means they cannot take part in the day. Twenty-four hours clear before they come back, and that is not negotiable no matter how important the meeting is — because the week you keep one child home is the week the other forty-eight do not get it.

Do you help with potty training?

We follow whatever you are doing at home, and we will tell you honestly whether we think they are ready. Children usually do it here before they do it at home, because they watch the others. No child has ever been asked to be trained before moving to the next room.

Who is actually with my child?

Two teachers assigned to each room, all day, all year, plus a floater. Every one of them holds current paediatric first aid and CPR, and every one has been background-checked and fingerprinted before their first day. Ask any of them how long they have been here; the answers are the reason we can say this.

Can I come in whenever I want?

Yes, unannounced, any time we are open. You do not need to book and you do not need a reason. Any early school that asks you to schedule a visit to your own child’s room is telling you something, and it is worth listening to.

What if we have to leave mid-year?

Thirty days’ written notice and we part on good terms, with no penalty and no withheld deposit. Life moves, jobs move, and holding a family to a twelve-month contract they cannot afford helps nobody. Come back when it suits — you keep your place in the list.