Napa Valley Cooperative Nursery School

Napa Valley Cooperative Nursery School offers activities such as art, crafting, cooking, building, creating, puzzling, multi-child games, science and discovery, sensory play, imaginative play, puppet theater, music, movement, storytime, and creative writing through dictation. Children also use outdoor features including a climbing dome, see saw, two story playhouse, mud kitchen, spinners, a giant sandbox with water pumps for wet or dry play, a windy track for tricycles and plasma cars, an imagination theater, an art easel, a glue table, an edible garden, and an ongoing gem and treasure hunt. Indoors, the program uses a Kids Can Cook kitchen, reading corner, play dough station, sensory bin, daily art station, and a daily craft and cut station.

• Ages: 2–6 years old

Napa Valley Cooperative Nursery School is a parent-participation co-op nursery school and a nonprofit school. The program describes itself as inclusive, play-based, and research-driven, with an environment that supports language and literacy development, early math and science concepts, art and music appreciation, and social-emotional growth. The school uses a co-op model in which parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles work together with the teacher, and every family holds a co-op job and engages as a parent teacher in the classroom. A parent-run Board of Directors, Fundraising Committee, Gardening and Maintenance Committee, Schedulers, and Special Events Team support the program, and the Board of Directors is made up of parents elected by the community. The program offers a warm one-on-one welcome as each child enters through the doorway each day, and there is fluidity between indoor and outdoor play spaces, including an Adventure Playground outdoor yard and a Creation Stations room with rotating seasonal activities and classroom staples. The program states that it has a policy not to discriminate on the basis of protected classifications under Federal or State law.

Napa Valley Cooperative Nursery School has been in Napa for 75 years and states that it has been a leader within the community for over 75 years. It is a member of the California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools and is described as a leader within the Napa community providing Napa families with early childhood education. The director, Adrianne Koford, received her degree in Child Development from California State University, Sacramento, and holds a Site Supervisor Child Development permit with the State of California.

A parent testimonial describes the co-op nursery as a place where the child has flourished, with parents involved every day and a sense of security and belonging that supports confidence and social skills, along with hands-on learning, community atmosphere, curiosity, independence, empathy, and teamwork.

Last updated March 8, 2026.