When we started planning our preschool, we knew we wanted a STEM focus. And we knew the curriculum would be play-based and child-led. So we wanted to convey these concepts in our name. We brainstormed words that could be in the name including "Explorers," "Engineers" and "Scientists." Finally, Brenda suggested "Robots" and Barbie added "Mud Puddles". While playing with the words, we changed it to "Robots and Mud Pies" We felt that the combination would include the STEM focus while still being clear that we would be playing and getting dirty. We added the pi symbol when we noticed the 'pie' connection and were happily surprised when we realized our initials where a type of inclined plane (RAMPP).  

Barbie's nephew, Ryan Gallini, is a graphic designer and he donated his time and talents to create our logo. Thanks, Ryan!!

No, we are the one and only RAMPP.

Children must be 2 years old in order to enroll. And children stay at RAMPP until they go to kindergarten, so sometimes we have children who are 6 years old or turning 6 during the school year.

We do accept some full-time children. Our full day hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Some children come five full-days while others come fewer days for the full day or have a mixed schedule with some full days and some half days. Our Tuition Page shows our full-day rates.

Because our curriculum is play-based and child-led, our morning and afternoon sessions do not usually do the same activities. At times, they may read the same book at meeting time or a child might choose to paint at the easel or build with blocks during both sessions. However, usually the children choose different activities throughout the day. Also, when the children are studying specific topics (projects), the afternoon and morning children most often will have different interests so they will work on different projects. A full day child who is really immersed in one topic, though, would be allowed to work on that same project all day or any part of the day if she wanted.

               Between sessions, the full day children eat lunch (provided by the parent), then they rest or play quietly until the afternoon children arrive. If a child needs a nap, we have a space where he can nap away from the other children, supervised by an adult.

No, we only accept children up to the point when they go to kindergarten (so until 5 or 6 years old). We do have an afternoon session for preschoolers.

We are not open in the summer.  We open on the day after Labor Day and close at the end of May.  At this time, we do not have summer camps. Some time in the future, we may decide to have 2 or 3 weeks of summer camps, but for now, we are enjoying our summer vacations (after years and years of working non-stop.)

We do not plan to open more preschools. Brenda and Barbie still want to spend most of their time in the classrooms. Adding more schools and more teachers would require too much time away from the fun. (And to be honest, we prefer hoola hoops over jumping through zoning, building code, and landlord related hoops.)

No (see jumping through hoops reference and add board of education hoops).

We opened our doors on September 3, 2013 with 7 children enrolled. Time really does fly when you're having fun!