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Pasadena, CA
Cottage Co-Op Nursery School

Parents at this school would recommend this school to other parents.

Review this preschool

neighborhood: Southwest Pasadena ·  Telephone: (626) 799-0387

• Summary
• General Info
• Curriculum &
  Teaching Approach
• Quality of
  Teaching
• Home/School
  Connection
• Discipline,
  Health & Safety
• Kindergarten
  Placement&Tips

General Approach to Learning

	Play-based
	Play-based with some structure
	Predominantly teacher-led instruction
	Montessori
	Waldorf
	Co-op
	Reggio-Emilia

source:

Social Skills & Work Habits

OVERALL RATING (4.5)
This school has increased my child's:
Ability to listen and follow directions
Ability to sit still for longer periods of time
Ability to be a part of a group of children
Self-sufficiency and independence
Awareness of others’ feelings
Cooperation with other children

source:

Curriculum and Teaching Approach

Parents' Comments

Parent #1
There is a focus on free play for the younger children, but always stations that the children may choose that challenge a range of learning skills. I do feel that the school falls into some gender traps as the girls often get stuck at dress up; the boys on tricycles and in the sandbox?unless they're drawn to the daily-changing stations.

Parent #2
The play-based learning structure at Cottage is very well designed without being too structured. Activities are carried over from day to day so children who have not chosen a certain activity on one day have a chance to complete it later in the week. Children are encouraged but never forced to engage in a variety of activities each day. Teachers also use encouragement and questioning to bring further learning into the activities based on the individual level of the child involved.

Parent #3
Very strong focus on developmentally appropriate activities; day is a combination of free play with structure (rotating activities, stations) and some structured group activities (snack time, story time, music, etc.).

Parent #4
The school has an emergent, play-based curriculum. There are various stations displayed to encourage the development of skills in each of the areas outlined above. Once a child expresses an interest in the activity, the teachers or parents working in the class room work with the child to extend the play and to engage in a dialog with the child to assist in the development and exploration of language, science, math or whatever the work station lends itself to. If a child is a bit shy, the teachers or parent workers might engage in a dialog with the child in an effort to engage that child in play or an activity. The stations are changed frequently, most of them are changed every week. The teachers are quite creative in developing the stations for exploration and play and at tailoring the play statioins to events relevant to the family community. For example, in 06/07, one of the students had an astronaut as a relative going on a space mission, so the teachers converted one area of the classroom play area into a pretend space ship with space helmets, old computer key boards to use as pretend equipment on the space ship, pictures of the planets, and a cd that narrated a countdown to blast off and narrated pretend space travel. It was very popular with the kids and peeked all the kids' interest in outer space, the planets, the moon etc. Each day, the class breaks into separate groups for group time, in which they gather in a circle to discuss a story and do other activities and then they eat snack together. The activities during group time vary depending upon the age and developmental stage of the children in the group. At the end of the day, the class joins for circle time in which there may be some discussion about events relevant to the day and where the group sings some songs and ends with a goodbye song. Reading and music is not limited however to these group and circle times. Books and instruments are available to the children during the free play time. If children gravitate to those activities, a teacher or parent will often join into the activity to extend the play. In fact, in the classes for the older children, there is a separate music room open to the children which has musical instruments, including a piano and guitars, other instruments and musical cds that the kids often dance to. As for physical development, the parent community came together in the summer of 07, in commemoration of the school's 35th anniversary, to redesign the play grounds. A parent who is an architect donated her time to design the play grounds and the parent community donated time over the summer to build it. It was a great community builder and, as a result of the efforts, the children have an innovtive and wonderful outdoor space to play in.