The staff at Discoveryland makes a concerted effort to provide reliable preschool and child care services and to provide loving, nurturing care for each child. Our goal is to work as a team with parents, sharing ideas and concerns about the growth and development of their children in our care.
Discoveryland serves not only as a child care and development center, but also as a lab school for Pacific Union College, where early childhood education majors can get hands-on experience working with children and a variety of learning methods. This means that children at Discoveryland are exposed to a broad and well-rounded range of care and instruction.
In the early 1960’s Oral Smith, a teacher at Pacific Union College Preparatory School, started a preschool in the basement of Ambs Hall in connection with the home economics department of Pacific Union College. The rationale for this preschool was to provide experience for college students who were getting a teacher education degree in home economics and were required to have experience working with children.
As the interest and need increased, the center expanded and moved in 1968 to a renovated College-owned house on the corner of Cold Springs Road and Howell Mountain Road. By 1978 this facility was too small and a center was designed specifically for child care in Angwin. It was officially named Discoveryland Preschool. This facility, which started as a teaching outlet for college students, continues today.