Business & Tech

Know a Bethwood Business: Carolyn's Creative Childcare, "The Daycare on the Farm"

For 24 years, Carolyn Polio has cared for area children among horses and hiking trails.

 

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Carolyn Polio moved from a Wooster Square apartment in New Haven to the house on Sperry Road 24 years ago, and she's glad she did.

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"Everybody was trying to encourage me to open a little daycare," she says. So she did. With a barn for her horse and access to hiking trails, it was the perfect spot for kids, she thought. And for two decades, Carolyn's Creative Childcare has been here, directly across from Whitlock's Book Barn in Bethany -- in fact, the daycare building used to be the Whitlock's home.

"And I've been enjoying it ever since -- we take kids on walks around Lake Chamberlain, which is right in our back yard, and we get to be out in nature as much as we can." Her students also get to care for the miniature horses, learning brushing and grooming.

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"Once we got here, and we had the space for the kids, I thought, I can never go back to the city," she says. Carolyn's Creative Childcare generally takes in between nine and ten children at a time. It's "kind of like an old-fashioned school," she says, moving at a more relaxed pace than other day cares. But education is still emphasized -- Carolyn has a Master's degree in childhood education and wrote her dissertation on establishing a nursery school.

"We get the children ready for kindergarten," she says. "We have a little girl leaving this year, and she's all set. She knows all the basics."

Graduations are special for her, she says. She loves following children as they progress and grow -- then catching up down the road.

"They never forget the daycare on the farm," she says.


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