Six-time winner of Bay Area Parent Magazine’s Best of the Best awards.
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SPNS is not accepting applications for the 2013-14 school year at this time.
Read what others have said about SPNS on our Testimonials Page.
Saratoga Parent Nursery School (SPNS) was founded in 1948 and has grown from an eight family babysitting exchange to a year-round preschool. We have programs for children ages 18 months to 5 years old.
Our school provides a friendly and supportive nursery school community dedicated to a play-based, developmental teaching program. We believe that play is essential in promoting children’s emotional, cognitive and social development, contributing to their overall sense of well-being. At SPNS, children are given opportunities for self-initiated exploration of their ever expanding world, while teachers and parents provide them with the necessary tools to enhance and find meaning from their discoveries.
At SPNS, we believe that the skills and knowledge gained in such "play", serve as the fundamental building blocks for future social and academic success. In the “classroom”, children are encouraged to choose from an array of developmentally-appropriate activities: art, science, cooking, music, imaginative play, and other hands-on activities. In our secure outdoor play area, children develop both their fine and gross motor skills through climbing and playing on the play structure, riding tricycles on the bike path, and engaging in any of the rotating outdoor small group activities.
In these early years, children also learn to play with their peers, transitioning from individual parallel play to more interactive cooperative play. In helping children develop their social skills, teachers and parents foster budding friendships by modeling respectful communication, conflict resolution and self-mastery skills.
We are a parent participation preschool. Parents assist the teacher in the classroom (which allows SPNS to maintain a high adult to child ratio) and hold “jobs” to help SPNS function efficiently and effectively. Parents also attend parent education meetings to learn effective parenting techniques from local experts and educators, granting them the opportunity to become the students and observers themselves. Through these meetings, time together in the classroom, playdates and other gatherings, SPNS families form a supportive and caring community.