Bear Valley Community Nursery School

Bear Valley Community Nursery School was founded in 1963 by a small group of 12 families and has grown since then. Located on Highway 38, between Baldwin and State Lanes, the school provides a peaceful and creative atmosphere for the children.

We wish to provide our children with a rich play life in an atmosphere of affection and cooperation. By actively and consciously pooling the talents and abilities of every member family, we can offer our children far more than each of us could provide alone. In this way the nursery school is an extension of the home.

We wish to create in our children a zest for life. We wish to encourage curiosity and the ability to cope with a variety of situations. The method of achieving these aims is to allow a free, happy atmosphere in which a large variety of experiences with all types of creative expressions are offered to the children. The individual child sets his own pace, choosing in which of these experiences he will engage. We wish to let each child be himself.

There is no place for rigidity in the creative atmosphere of a cooperative nursery school. While a curriculum is planned, a maximum of flexibility is sought and emphasis is placed on free, creative, and varied experiences that are offered to, not forced on, the child.

We wish to aid our children in attaining social maturity, maximum physical growth and development, and emotional stability. The children are given an opportunity to experiment in safe surroundings that are geared to their level, unhampered by restrictions and the inevitable tensions they encounter at home. While they are being given a stimulating and rich play life that adds to their present happiness, they are also being given a basic groundwork for happy and effective living through life. The cooperative nursery school is a training ground for democratic living.