Hello! Jumping in late to the discussion. My son (age 7) has attended various programs with both MASA and Hatterdays for about a year. He's had positive experiences at both, but he definitely prefers the MASA program. He attended the MASA Saturday program in March and in April he attended HATS (Berets), so he offered a "back to back" comparison. In his words "MASA doesn't talk down to us because we're young kids. At HATS, it's all about Magic School Bus or Magic Tree House, which are cute stories, but I outgrew them last year. HATS feels like public school with work sheets and cut and paste projects. MASA is all about the science and its application. It is super cool to do hands on experiments. Plus Trinity Prep rocks." He's a very enthusiastic boy...he carefully reads the provided course descriptions and he expects them to live up to their billing. He can be a bit dramatic, but those are his words and feelings, so I thought I would share.
Personally, I'm glad to have found both programs. We moved to DeLand last summer (from south of Orlando) and finding a school (Children's House Montessori in DeLand) and program like HATS were very important. Stetson is a wonderful community resource and I think that Lynn (HATS director) works hard to put together her program. BERETS (for the younger children) is still new and, therefore, doesn't offer the variety available for older children. I'll continue to support her program and I have registered my son for one week of the summer program and look forward to the time when he "ages up" to HATS. And, in the meantime, I'll be on the road to MASA, as well! :-)
