Creative Nursery And Preschool, Llc

Creative Nursery and Preschool was established as a response to my own personal search for high-quality, licensed, safe and educational child care for my son in the South St. Louis area. After searching for months and not finding anything that fulfilled my requirements, I decided to start my own program in order to provide what I felt was lacking in child care in the South St. Louis community. I started the program in September 2009 in my home with four children in my care, including my own son. My husband and I finished our basement to create a separate space for the program and I became State-licensed in the summer of 2010. By November of 2010, I expanded and added four more children to the program and hired my first employees. Due to overwhelming demand and a desire for an even higher-quality program with more staff resources, we decided to expand to a small center, which opened in August 2012.

At Creative Nursery and Preschool, my goal is to provide a nurturing environment with plenty of individual attention for each child with a focus on learning through play that supports each area of development. We utilize the Creative Curriculum, which is a research-based, developmentally-appropriate curriculum. All activities are developmentally appropriate according to the age and abilities of each child. The children are assessed three times a year using Teaching Strategies Gold, which is a comprehensive assessment tool spanning the major domains of development (Cognitive, Physical, Language, Social-Emotional, Literacy and Mathematics).

Creative Nursery and Preschool is State-licensed and my longer term goal is to become accredited by either the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) or Missouri Accreditation (MOA). The children have space for active play, activities and rest in a cheerful, clean, organized and comfortable environment that has an intimate, homelike quality. The children have access to a variety of books, blocks, art materials, puzzles, dramatic play materials, games, musical instruments, and other manipulative toys for fine and gross motor development to ensure learning through play that is developmentally appropriate. The program is completely TV-free.

Parents receive the weekly schedule and menu, as well as a written report at the end of each day detailing daily activities as well as diaper changes/toileting remarks and meals. Photos are made available via Facebook so families have an idea of what their child experiences throughout the day, although parents can opt-out of having their child included on the Facebook page. Parents are free to drop-in at any time. We fully support breastfeeding mothers and work with parents who are using cloth diapers.