Preschool Evolution

Eight years ago we were just getting ready to move from our home in Baltimore, down to the DC area. We had loved our time in Baltimore, but we were excited to take a step forward in our lives and move on to somewhere where we could settle down a little.

Due to the fact that our ward there was quite spread out (45 minutes tip to tip) and the primary was very small, Spencer and Cami had not had very many opportunities to interact with other kids from the ward very often. Imagine our delight when we moved to our DC area ward when Spencer was 4 and found that his Primary class had 12 kids in it and no one lived more than 10 minutes away. What a fun development this was for our family!

Yes we were WAY skinnier back then!

At that point Spencer had never been to preschool before as we were WAY too poor to pay to send him to a private preschool. So in another life-changing development for our family, someone in our ward invited Spencer to participate in a Joy School group.

Wow what a cool concept! Although I had never heard of such a thing up to that point in my life...I fell in love with everything about it! Spencer loved it! I loved it! And we have never turned back! I grew dissatisfied with the Joy School curriculum and system after a couple of years, but we made some changes and went on. And now it's been 8 straight years without break of participating with one (or more) of my kids in a co-op preschool!

Adam's preschool (plus one) wearing the shirts they tie-dyed and painted with a fish while they were learning about oceans!

The kids get the fun and independence of going off to preschool, but instead of being taught by overworked teachers in a big classroom, they're taught by loving, talented mothers of other preschool kids. It's come far past the point of financial restraints being the driving force and it's evolved into a passion...so much so that this year I even designed a curriculum for Adam's Pre-K group to help prepare them for all-day kindergarten which awaits them next year. Although it is sometimes stressful, especially when it's my turn to teach, I seriously couldn't imagine it any other way!