ROCHESTER — It’s been a little over four months since Learning Tree Family Daycare, a Spanish language bilingual preschool program, opened its doors. A pesar de la pandemia, todo va bien (Despite the pandemic, it's going well).

Before Roxana and Rob D’Italia opened Learning Tree in their home, the demand was already high.

After the family was interviewed by Sippican Week in June, Roxana said they received “call after call after call” about enrolling in the full-day programs.

Now, two out of the four days offered at the daycare are at full capacity, and she can talk to her students in full Spanish.

“I think it’s so easy when you immerse them and talk to them in Spanish” when they’re young, Roxana said.

The idea came when Roxana and Rob couldn’t find an immersion daycare for their children, Sofia and Anthony, in the area. So they decided to work towards opening their own.

Learning Tree opened on Aug. 18 and is run out of the D’Italia’s home. With coronavirus, they only allow six children in the program per day. 

Everyone enrolled is between two and three years old, plus a six-month old who Roxana said reacts to her when she talks in Spanish. 

A typical day starts at 8 a.m. when parents drop off their children. The kids are fed breakfast and have freetime until 9 a.m. when they have Spanish lessons.

For lessons, children are broken up in between Roxana and her assistant. 

Because of the small class size, she said it’s basically one-to-one learning. Most lessons start with just talking in Spanish, and then go into learning basics.

After that, the kids play outside for 45 minutes in the sandboxes, on the play sets and in the backyard. Then it’s lunchtime, naptime, playtime again and lesson time, before the day finally ends at around 4:15 p.m.

“The earlier you start [speaking in Spanish], the more beneficial it can be,” Roxana said.

That idea was part of the reason behind why the D’Italia’s started Learning Tree Daycare.

Roxana is from Peru, where she studied public affairs and communications. She moved to the United States 12 years ago and worked at first as an au pair, nannying three kids for a span of five years. 

When she was nannying, she spoke to the children in Spanish and saw the benefits of immersion.  

After marrying Rob and moving to Marion, they bought a split residential and commercial space.

When the commercial space didn’t rent for a time, they thought of opening up an immersion daycare in the space. Instead, they got an incredible offer on the property and moved out. 

Now they live in Rochester and run their daycare out of their house. 

Though the family moved to Rochester to open the program, Roxana said that “we are glad we did it,” adding that the program would have probably closed temporarily due to covid had it been in the other location.

Her children, now 6 and 9, are spending their educational time at Rochester Memorial split between being at school and learning remotely. 

Though being a mom and managing a daycare can be tough at times, Roxana said things have been going well. 

During afternoon playtime, Sofia gets dropped off by her school bus, and the kids get so excited, that the children will call out for her.

Some of the students can speak in full spanish now, which has taken Sofia off-guard at times when she speaks with them, 

To prepare for the program, Roxana went back to school at Cape Cod Community College for her accreditation. She also taught Spanish at the YMCA preschool learning center in Marion and volunteered at a Mattapoisett preschool for a year to build up her hours in order to be certified to teach.

With her experience, Roxana knows that what she, the children and the parents are experiencing during covid is not normal for a daycare program.

Usually, parents would stop and chat to Roxana and give feedback on what they think of the program.

Now, the parents have to drop off their children and leave. 

Thankfully, she was able to have a socially-distanced Christmas Tree Lighting with families on Thanksgiving night, and she was able to get to know the parents better.

“They absolutely love the program,” Roxana said, adding that she was very happy to hear from them because she wants to build trust in the parents.