With the most recent Best of Federal Way winners revealed, Brooklake Childcare & Learning Center has cemented itself as a major favorite of the city, as it won its ninth Best Day Care award in a row.

When asked why Brooklake, which first opened its doors in 2016, has been voted the best so many times, day care director Mandy Vega says that the day care is loved by the parents.

“Our parents and families absolutely love us, the care, and just our heart and the staff that we choose to be hired here are very delicately chosen to ensure that every child feels love and safety,” said Brooklake director Mandy Vega.

Vega, who has been working at Brooklake for two years, and program supervisor Janet Skelton, who has been at Brooklake since 2018, both agree that communicating with families is important and that parents are updated on a daily basis, with many offers of family engagement.

“We take what’s going on at home very seriously, about how that affects the child’s class and so we do our best to serve the whole family,” said Skelton.

The day care, which is connected to Brooklake Church, is available for children ages 4 weeks to 4 years and currently has 59 kids enrolled. Open from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., the building has two rooms for toddlers, one room for 1-year-olds and younger, one room for preschool age kids and a fenced outdoor playground.

Each room is decorated with its own special theme (this reporter was quite taken with the jungle-themed room) and each room provides different needs for each age group. While the room for infants has cribs and a laundry unit, the room for older kids have special naptime cots, potty training tools and family trees decorating the walls with pictures of their families.

Teachers, assistant teachers and centre aides at the daycare work to make sure each child is taken care of and are equipped to move on to their next stage of development.

“They’re learning school readiness, so our [preschool] teachers Ms. Berlone and Ms. Martha work with ABCs, building letter recognition, learning how to hold a pencil and markers, how to trace their name, how to recognize their names,” said Vega of how the preschool classes help prepare kids for kindergarten.

Since the day care is connected to the church, there is a Bible curriculum that is used in the classrooms, along with prayers at meal times.

“They have a Bible story each week that they read with the kids and then specific activities and crafts that they do with that Bible story, ” said Skelton. Despite being a faith-based daycare, it is not required for families to be a part of the church or to even be religious.

“We make sure that we don’t serve just the child, we serve the child as a whole, so we include more partnership with the families,” said Vega.

Learn more about Brooklake Childcare and Learning Center by visiting brooklakechildcare.org, emailing childcare@brooklake.org or call 253-517-8237. The day care is at 629 S. 356th St., in Federal Way.

Teachers are encouraged to decorate their doors and classrooms however they want at Brooklake.

Meal times are an important part of Brooklake Childcare & Learning, as they operate from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.