Bolton Hill Nursery, Baltimore

The Mission of Bolton Hill Nursery: is to provide a warm and encouraging atmosphere that enhances self-concept, instills basic moral values, encourages social interaction, and enriches awareness of the natural and cultural world. We believe children learn through their play. Staff members strive to be aware of each child’s needs and learning readiness, and attempt to meet these needs through a wide range of preschool activities. Through art, music, nature, creative movement, sensory materials, free and dramatic play, cooking, science, stories, field trips, and outdoor play, the children explore the environment and become knowledgeable and comfortable in their interactions with the world. With an emphasis on verbal enrichment during the preschool years, we make the most of opportunities to interest the child in books and words, providing varied play-based experiences, to prepare the child emotionally, socially, intellectually, and educationally for the formal school years. Our History" Bolton Hill Nursery was started in the late 1950’s when a group of Brown Memorial Church families acknowledged the need for a mother’s group in the area. Eventually it grew into a cooperative nursery school fully integrated and serving the needs of both working and non-working parents, an unusual concept in the early 1960s. Bolton Hill Nursery was officially founded in 1969. In the mid-1980s, Bolton Hill Nursery became an independent, non-religious, non-profit school utilizing a play-based philosophy of learning. BHN wasn’t always a highly sought after entity. There were lean years as families left the city and moved to suburban communities. But in the 1990’s there was a move back into the city by those families who realized the advantages of living in close proximity to their jobs and to the many cultural and social opportunities the city’s neighborhoods had to offer. Bolton Hill Nursery began to flourish once again. Enrollment increased. Families from other neighborhoods such as Canton, Fells Point, Federal Hill, Reservoir Hill, Mt. Washington and other neighborhoods across the City began to show interest in the school. BHN began a wait list that grew with each passing year. Bolton Hill Nursery was a very small school located in three rooms on the second floor of a church building with a limited enrollment of 45 children. With the purchase of our new building, the school is now in two locations and has doubled its size with over 90 students. BHN currently has 8 classrooms- three 2 year old classrooms, three 3 year old classrooms and two 4 year old classrooms.