Families and children attend co-op together. Working with the facilitator, families enhance their parenting experience by furthering personal growth and parenting skills while benefiting from peer-to-peer support. Children's development is enhanced through a variety of age-appropriate learning experiences.

Families are an integral part of the program. They work as a team with the program facilitator (teacher) to provide stimulating learning experiences and fulfill the needs of the co-op by signing for an annual job, helping with classroom chores and tasks, and more. Most importantly, parents act as a support group for each other, sharing experiences, frustrations, solutions, and successes.

Co-op is an opportunity for families to connect with their child’s educational experience and environment, and we rely on our families to help things run smoothly. In addition to required classroom attendance: Each family will sign up to bring snacks for their class at least once each quarter, and will be assigned day-to-day cleaning duties like sweeping, vacuuming, and taking out the trash at the end of class. An adult from each family is required to attend one, one-hour long seminar each month. If you miss two or more seminars before the February enrollment period, your family will lose your priority enrollment as a currently enrolled co-op family for the following year. Make up seminars are offered at least once per year. An adult from each family must participate in one monthly cleaning night, once per school year. Cleaning nights are two hours long, and families sign up for the month of their choosing. In addition to the monthly cleaning night, all families enrolled for spring quarter are asked to participate in the end of the year cleaning night. Each family signs up for a job at the beginning of the school year. Examples of past and current jobs include filling a role on the executive board, winter/spring fundraising committees, overseeing the clothing drive and more. You may be asked to join additional committees or to fill additional roles as needed.

Once a month, we ask that one adult from your family attends an evening educational seminar typically presented by a guest speaker. Past seminars have included topics such as: children's nutrition, CPR, speech & language development, prioritizing your mental health, Circle of Security, literacy, postpartum/paternal mental health, and many more! If you are interested in presenting at a seminar, please email us at manitocoop@gmail.com.

The facilitator provides age-appropriate activities for each class. This includes arts/crafts, sensory exploration, reading, math concepts, developing fine motor and gross motor skills, music, and movement. A typical day involves free play for the children to explore hands-on activities, snack time, and circle time with reading, songs, and movement.

Please check out our Tuition page for more info.

Manito Cooperative preschool is affiliated with the Community Colleges of Spokane (CCS) – Spokane Falls Community College Early Childhood Education program. Each adult enrolled at Manito Co-op and CCS receives continuing education credits at Community Colleges of Spokane.

There is no minimum age for our infant class. Families can attend with their infant as soon as they feel safe and ready to do so. It is left up to the families discretion if they choose to bring a newborn infant, under 28 days of age to co-op (please consult with your pediatrician if you have concerns). In order to move on to our Toddler 1 class a child must be one year old by August 31st before the school year starts. In some instances children may need to take the infant class twice before they can move on to Toddler 1. For Toddler 2 children must be two years old by August 31st before the school year starts. Preschool children must be three years old by August 31st before the school year starts. Children who have turned six on or before the first day of co-op are not eligible for any co-op class.