Best Childcare Centers In Helsinki Near Me

4worldlovers:
UNICEF says joyful learning environments should be active, bright, and cheerful. We at the ICEC daycares do this and more. We celebrate the whole child by encouraging movement, creativity and academic growth with both adult and child lead activities. Through playing, singing, dancing, painting, drawing, investigating, imagining and research children can truly learn to love learning. Following this philosophy in our daycare centres with teachers who care and find joy in teaching gives each child a chance to reach their full academic and creative potential. We have a multicultural environment and have children and families from different backgrounds and cultures in our settings. We foster an environment that embraces all people wherever they are from, we celebrate differences and encourage diversity and teamwork and independant learning play a big role within our kindergartens.

We follow both the English Early Years Curriculum and the Finnish Early Years Curriculum. We use a creative learning philosophy and the High Scope method of teaching, which we have geared towards the requirements of our centres. You can find more information on these in this website.

This is a detailed document and it is our aim to give you as much information as we can, so you can make an informed decision concerning your child/children.

In our experience it is very easy to write a curriculum but not so easy to implement. So we have a list of things you can look for in a daycare with this curriculum, and we appreciate your feedback on whether you felt the curriculum is evident in the environment.

4worldlovers: Laugh&Learn Playschool is a private English daycare in Pohjois-Haaga, providing high quality full-time and part-time early childhood education for children aged 2–6. We are a Helsinki City licensed playschool and preschool provider. We have 400 square meters of colorful indoor space on 3 floors with our own private yard. We are open Monday to Friday from 7.00 to 17.30.


Children don't need prior English in order to join our daycare. Children will learn English, and their preexisting language skills will be strengthened, through our everyday educational activities and play. It’s very important for us to give your children the best possible start in their educational journey. We emphasize hands-on learning through play, science projects, drama, math and much more!


Our enthusiastic and qualified staff and management have many years of experience in the daycare industry. Our playschool teachers are native English speakers or fluent in the language. All groups also have teachers who speak Finnish to assist children when needed.

4worldlovers: Bright Beginners is an English playschool that provides high quality childcare and education to children ages under 3s to 6 years old.

4worldlovers: We are a small private English kindergarten operating in Helsinki since 2011. We have daycare centers in Etelä-Haaga (21 children) and Länsi-Pasila/Eläintarha (42 children). Our kindergartens provide a safe, caring and fun environment for children to learn and develop.

The small size of our kindergartens permits us to focus on each child’s individual needs and development. Our experienced teachers encourage creativity and learning through fun and play. We also aim to promote an international environment where children learn about other cultures.

We are an active kindergarten that goes on many trips and we walk to different local parks regularly. We believe that active children are happy children!

The Little English Kindergarten aims to create an environment where children can be safe, happy and motivated to learn. The teachers are there to listen and support the children.

The kindergarten also wants to nurture an environment that is open, honest and warm. Children are always welcomed with open arms whenever they want a hug. The children should feel at home and secure while at the day care centre. The kindergarten has three main values. Please read more about them.

We structure our curriculum around learning areas, which we implement in a holistic way throughout our activities in order to support the development of your child. Through independent exploration, structured activities, and hands-on learning children can develop and have fun.

4worldlovers: Albatross Daycare was established in 1998. It is a private, Finnish owned daycare, in which the working language is English. We offer daycare places for 100 children between 1 – 6 years old. Albatross attracts both Finnish and international families who would like their child to be part of an active environment. Albatross Daycare and Preschool are located in the Leppävaara area, which offers easy access to local amenities such as public transportation.

The daycare founder and owner, Eija Rolamo, received the “Entrepreneur of the year”, in 2006, for recognition of the daycare’s accomplishments.

Albatross is a reliable partner and takes its responsibilities as an employer and a service provider seriously. Albatross Daycare cooperates with municipalities/ local children’s health centers (neuvola) and schools. The daycare provides pedagogical support for all groups and assists families.

Albatross Daycare is open for 12 months a year but closed during weekends and on all public holidays. In July the daily opening times are a little bit shorter than normally.

The daycare has staff members from all over the world, currently we have 15 different nationalities among our teaching staff. In addition to the teaching staff, the daycare also employs a pedagogical manager, a special needs teacher, a general manager and two cleaners.

With these additional staff members, we ensure that the children receive the best early childhood education possible.

4worldlovers: Helsinki English Montessori Preschool, established in 1993, is an English-speaking Montessori playschool in the heart of Kamppi.

Helsinki English Montessori offers daycare to 2-6-year-old children. Alongside the daycare, Helsinki English Montessori has a small preschool class for 6-year-olds in the same facility. Altogether, we have spots for 46 children at Helsinki English Montessori. We use English in our daily activities and as our language of instruction: we offer your child the possibility to learn English in a Montessori learning environment with a highly professional staff. Don’t worry if your child does not know English yet – we’ll assist him or her in transitioning from their mother tongue to English at their own pace!​

Our main goal is to provide early childhood education and care in an individual manner that supports the development of each child in our playschool. Montessori is based on the idea that children have an innate instinct to learn. Children want to learn! In Montessori schools, we help children to learn, play, and do things on their own by creating opportunities for learning and creativity. We promote respectful behavior towards others and give children room to work on their own, but we also encourage teamwork and collaboration with others. ​We have a highly professional staff that is devoted to their work and supporting the development of the children in our playschool.

Our days consist of both Montessori classroom activities and free playtime. We also have a refreshing outing in the Lastenlehto park nearby the playschool. Additional activities include music groups, physical education, field trips, library visits, as well as other fun seasonal activities, such as ice-skating and attending swimming school.

Between 3 and 6 years of age, children go through multiple sensitive periods. The term ‘sensitive period’ refers to a special phase in a child's life when the desire to learn and the ability to absorb particular skills is especially strong. This means that the early years – before entering actual school life – are an ideal time for positive learning experiences in the fields of mathematics, letters, shapes, colors, social skills, and language, among others.

Our learning environment – including the classroom, the materials used, the social setting, and the atmosphere in general – is specially designed to help children in their own learning processes. Children are encouraged to express themselves by choosing amongst the learning tasks offered by the teachers. We think it is very important that every child enjoys learning new skills: this will build self-confidence and contribute to continuous learning during the years to come.

In the classroom, children are guided and encouraged to use special learning materials and techniques. These include objects and exercises that teach practical skills needed in everyday life (from task organization and care of the environment to tying shoelaces, cleaning the table and courtesy towards others). Sensorial materials help children to learn how to order, classify and describe their sensory impressions in relations, length, width, temperature, mass, and color, etc. The math materials support children in developing their mathematical thinking through concreteness and internalizing the concepts of number, symbol, sequence, operations, and memorization of basic facts.

The role of the teachers is to motivate children in their individual learning processes. Teachers encourage children to choose tasks and activities matching the child’s ongoing sensitive period and guide them in using the learning materials with the help of the Montessori pedagogical approach. In our school the working language is English, but rather than being taught as an isolated subject, it is used as a natural tool to enhance learning in other fields. The international school spirit also contributes to learning respect for other cultures.