History

The Child Development Laboratories have provided exemplary programming for children since 1927, when a nursery school was founded on the third floor of the home economics building for eighteen children- aged eighteen months to four years, and this began what was to become a significant international role in early childhood education.

In 1947, over 700 student families joined campus life, as a result of the GI Bill, bringing with them over 300 children. Shortly after, two quonset huts were erected to house the cooperative nursery school, and in 1948, Spartan Nursery Schools were opened. In this program, parents paid reduced fees in exchange for participating in the preschool.

In 1950, the Spartan Nursery school became housed with the Department of Home Management and Child Development in the College of Home Economics.

With the building of the Breslin Center in 1988, the two facilities were united as the Child Development Laboratories and both moved to the Central School Building in East Lansing.

In addition to the Central School location seen above, a second campus opened in 2004 through collaboration with Haslett Public Schools and Head Start. Haslett built a preschool wing onto their Wilkshire Early Childhood Center.  It is the MSU Child Development Laboratories, Haslett campus.