Why Nursery School? Why a Co-Op?

The goals of the Community Cooperative Nursery School (CCNS) are to provide young children with an environment in which they learn from each other with developmentally appropriate materials, equipment and activities in a social setting. At CCNS we try not so much to teach as to stimulate each child’s curiosity, to develop positive social skills and to encourage creative and emotional expression.

It has been said that play is the work of the child. At nursery school, the children build homes, planes, boats, trains and other things with a wide variety of materials. With these structures they dramatize not only what they know, but also what they feel. In the family-life play area, dramatic play takes the form of serving up meals for friends in the play kitchen, talking on the telephone, or walking baby dolls in the stroller.

This kind of group and individual play, enriched with appropriate materials, lets children re-enact their experience, their emotions, their confusions and their amusement with the world they live in. Children need to have easy access to a variety of creative materials -paint, wood, clay, water, sand, etc. At CCNS, these materials are readily available.

Parents are an integral part of the CCNS experience, and there is always at least one parent working with the teacher in the classroom at all times.  When we, the parents, take those first steps from home to school with our children, we not only help smooth the transition, we also create an enriching experience for them.