Play Based Preschool

At Mulberry, we embrace and amplify the magic of being a child. As a play based preschool, we recognize that play is children’s “work.” Play is joyful, meaningful, actively engaging, interactive, and iterative. Play fulfills a basic human need to express curiosity, creativity, and imagination. Engaging in play helps children manage their emotions, find pleasure, and access their innovative capabilities.

Play is essential for young children and sets the foundation for the evolution of essential social and emotional skills. Through play, children learn to forge connections, communicate ideas, and understand others. Play also teaches children leadership and group skills, including how to share, negotiate, resolve conflicts, and advocate for themselves and others.

At Mulberry, we recognize, respect, and trust children as capable, autonomous agents of their playful learning journeys. A child’s play based learning experience is enhanced when they have time and space to engage freely in a multi-sensory environment. Our students are encouraged to get dirty, make choices, make mistakes, explore different roles and perspectives, take risks, and investigate. Mulberry’s indoor-outdoor learning environment ensures children can express themselves and their creativity in the environment and manner that appeals to them.

Play is an inherent tool children use to build resilience and coping skills as they learn to navigate relationships, negotiate social challenges, and conquer their fears. By focusing on children’s innate discovery and learning through play, play based preschools lay the groundwork for success in school and in life.

Positive Discipline

Children who possess social-emotional skills become caring, connected, confident contributors in the world. As one of three positive discipline schools in Silicon Valley, Mulberry focuses on encouragement, mutual respect, cooperation, and problem-solving, not punishment.

Positive discipline is a kind but firm values-based approach that instills a sense of belonging and significance. Each child knows they are valuable and valued, capable and responsible, providing them with a solid and secure foundation.

At Mulberry, we help children become aware of, identify, and work through big feelings. By providing a safe space for children to express and feel what they’re feeling, we enable them to realize that all emotions are acceptable and that their feelings provide essential information. This feeling-thinking-deciding process allows children to self-soothe rather than act out. When a child can regulate their emotions, they can make better choices.

Positive discipline plants the seeds for good character, open communication, collaboration, and a better understanding of self and others. Children who experience positive discipline are more confident, capable, and emotionally self-aware.

Parent Education

At Mulberry, we partner with parents to trust themselves and their child.

As the “first teacher,” parents are integral to their child’s learning and development. Home is where young children spend much of their time. Relationships and interactions with parents, siblings, extended family, and neighbors influence how children understand and experience the world around them.

Mulberry’s continuous parent education program enables caregivers to show up for their children in a healthy, grounded, and supportive manner that strengthens their relationship, cultivates connection, embraces the power of playful learning, and enhances social-emotional learning.

One of the ways we cultivate this cohesiveness is with our 7-week positive discipline parent training. Facilitated by our Certified Positive Discipline trainers, this in-depth workshop gives parents the groundwork for creating a safe space for their child and the tools to guide them to do the right thing for the right reasons, especially when big feelings arise.

By creating a collaborative relationship between home and school, Mulberry supports parents and caregivers, empowering them to actively promote playful learning and positive discipline at home and in the community.

Flexible Schedule

As a parent-participation learning environment, our intent is to create a positive, enjoyable, and long-term relationship with the families we serve. To provide continuity between school and home, parents contribute three hours a week in the classroom. We also have ongoing parent education and our 7-week positive discipline workshop.

Mulberry realizes that every family is different and has differing needs, which is why we offer various parent participation scheduling options. Rest assured, we will collaborate with you to design a schedule that works.

Student-Teacher Ratio

Mulberry’s low teacher-to-child ratio is one of the numerous highlights of our school.

Research shows that lower student-teacher ratios enhance a child’s experience by increasing individual interactions and educational instruction opportunities.
With just seven to eight students per educator, Mulberry teachers get to know and understand each child deeply, including what excites, delights, and upsets them and how they learn and communicate.

In-classroom parent participants are integral for creating opportunities to cultivate meaningful teacher-student connections. Forging these unique teacher-child bonds enables the educator to serve each child in a manner that enriches their distinct development path.