Finding the Right Preschool Can Be a Challenge

If you're like me, you started looking at preschools way before it was reasonable because you'd heard those stories about long wait lists and how hard it was to get accepted. Turns out, that's not really the case. For those of you reading this who are about to start the process, you can relax, it's not as bad as you've heard.

I visited about 10 different preschools and fortunately ran out of time, because I probably would have seen more. That seems a little over the top when I think back on it. Or maybe I was just being thorough, as my husband kindly put it.

I just wasn't sure what I was looking for exactly. The more schools I looked at, the more my requirements evolved. I wanted a school with a nice atmosphere, a good play yard, bright spacious classrooms, experienced caring teachers and a place where the kids were having fun.  They were all equally important, and at the end of the process, we found them all at the

In an early visit, I was taken around the school by Nancy Swanson, the school's director. She was welcoming and warm and reminded me of, well, a teacher.  I was able to observe the children on the playground and in the classrooms and learned about the school's developmental education philosophy.

Nancy Swanson came to the nursery school first as a teacher in 1979 and became director in 1987.  She greets the children every morning as they come to school, knows them by name and keeps her office door open. During one of my daughter's, ahem, "difficult phases," I went to see Nancy for advice. She reassured me that what we were going through was perfectly normal and let me borrow some early childhood books that helped me understand my daughter's emotional outbursts and what I could do to help her (and me!) through them. It was a huge help.

According to Nancy, a developmental education is one where "the teachers act as guides, allowing children to discover things for themselves with lots of hands on experiments, while incorporating a schedule and a routine.  Art is an open ended process where the focus is on the process and not the end product. Children are also encouraged to be independent and to learn to comfort themselves and to be empathetic to others."  There is a lot of unplanned learning and spontaneous exploration. Early this year, the students in my daughter's class took particular interest in bugs they were finding around the play yard so many of their activities focused around learning about insects using science, art, books and songs.

In a time when parents feel pressure to make sure their children reach their full potential and academics are being pushed earlier than ever, we need to constantly remind ourselves that children will reach the stages of development in their own time and be socially and cognitively better off if we let them do so. San Marino Community Church Nursery School practices this philosophy everyday and the teachers do a fantastic job at instilling a love of learning and encouraging natural curiosity.

My daughter is now in her second year there and I have to admit it will be hard to leave when the time comes. We have had a wonderful experience.  San Marino Community Church Nursery School is the kind of place I'd want to go to if I were four. No matter what kind of morning I'm having, the minute I walk out of the classroom my day is always a little bit brighter.