The earliest years of childhood are filled with discovery, play, learning and more. For a select group of Menlo students, those formative years took place not in a typical childcare program, but at Menlo’s own daycare.
The Menlo School Child Care Center looks after the children of Menlo faculty and staff from infancy to five years old. While most Menlo students join the school in middle or high school, there are a few daycare alumni who have been part of the community from a very young age, getting a truly unique, early exposure to Menlo’s campus life.
Sophomore Ilsa Hanson, the daughter of history teachers Charles Hanson and Katharine Hanson, attended the daycare from the time she was six months old to four years old. Even though she was very young at the time, Hanson still remembers her years at the daycare fondly, specifically because of the different activities they had. Some of the activities that took place during the day were arts and crafts, nap time, song singing and walks through campus. “I definitely remember all the arts and crafts we used to do, and we always had a lot of fun,” Hanson said.
Students who attended the Menlo daycare had the rare opportunity to observe Menlo Middle and Upper School students from the time they were very young. One specific memory that stands out to Hanson is eating lunch in the old cafeteria near Wunderlich Field and watching the older high school students interact. “We would get in a red [wagon] together and it was like a long trek over [to the cafeteria],” Hanson said. “I think it was honestly fun to be in that environment when you’re so little because at most daycares you’re just around other little kids, but it was cool to go to lunch and see all these like 17 and 18-year-olds, who, at that time, seemed really old.”
Junior Bella Jensen, the daughter of math teacher Danielle Jensen, who attended the daycare from around five months old to two years old, had a similar experience seeing older students around campus and looking up to them. To her, even Menlo’s youngest students, the sixth graders, were old and mature. “It’s crazy now that I’m at that age and I’m looking at the kids in the daycare now and thinking, ‘That was me at one point,’” Jensen said.
Junior Calvin Barad, the son of middle school Spanish teacher Katie Barad, who also attended the daycare, echoed this sentiment. “[The older students] seemed huge and massive, but now I’m looking back and the sixth graders don’t seem so massive,” Barad said.
Since they were so young at the time, the students who attended the daycare are not as close as they used to be; however, they still find it fun and comforting to see familiar faces around campus. “We didn’t know back then that we’d be classmates for so long,” Barad said.
For Jensen, her journey at Menlo from being in the daycare to being a high schooler feels surreal. “I have been in the Menlo community since I was less than a year old, and when I graduate I’m going to be 18 years old, so it’s just crazy that I’ve been a part of the community for my entire life,” Jensen said.
