About Us
Bolton Hill Nursery is a nursery school and childcare center for pre-school-aged children. Our distinguished and well-trained staff of early childhood professionals offer a rich and engaging curriculum to more than 80 children ages 2, 3 and 4. A full-scale pre-kindergarten program rounds out every child's years at BHN.
Operating year-round and located at 204 W. Lanvale Street in the center of the historic Bolton Hill neighborhood in Baltimore City, BHN is an anchor institution beloved by all.
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. There were lean years as families left the city and moved to suburban communities. By the 1990s, however, families were drawn back to the city by its cultural and social opportunities. Bolton Hill Nursery began to flourish once again. Families from neighborhoods across the City began to show interest in the school and enrollment boomed.
In December 2012, the BHN board made the decision to purchase our current building, the former home of Family and Children's Services. Importantly, the building had many characteristics befitting of the mission and vision of BHN - an historic freestanding building, spacious inside and out and complete with a beautiful yard.
Since then our school has continued to thrive, once again becoming a highly sought after home away from home for the children of working and non-working parents alike.