For three hours each day, Bedford Mothers’ Club School at 8:30 a.m., preschoolers learn their letters and numbers, do arts and crafts, listen to music and have a snack before parents pick them up.

Longtime teacher Gwen Broder wouldn’t change a thing. “Every day is different,” said Broder. “Every day is fun.”

Broder has been working at the preschool for more than 40 years and has been a large part of its success teaching generations of Bedford children.

“I’ve taught moms and dads and then taught their children,” said Broder. “I feel like a grandmother 20 times over.”

Broder moved to Bedford when she was 11 and her father had bought the Wagon Wheel grocery store on North Amherst Road, now the Flower Cart. When she married in 1964, her husband started working for her father.

“My dad bought it in the early 1950s,” she said. “It was the only place in town. When I married my husband, they enlarged the store.”

She started at the school in 1965, working as a kindergarten teacher and after the school became state licensed in 1970, she became the director. Teaching had always meant more for Broder, though.

“We became state-licensed, and I had been there for a while. I’m a teacher first, though, director second,” she said.

Through the year, Broder and the other teachers at the school do several activities with the children. Every year, they go apple picking at a farm in Londonderry.

The Fire Department visits the students annually to go over fire safety, and a dental hygienist visits to talk to kids about their teeth.

Broder and the teachers also take the children to Parker’s Maple Barn in Mason to see how trees are tapped. All the children also eat a pancake breakfast while there.

“It’s kind of a gift to be a really good teacher,” said Margaret Goodrich, another teacher at the school who has worked with Broder for 15 years. “She has it. She has a good understanding of little kids, what they can do and what they can’t do.”

Broder doesn’t plan to retire soon either.

“Other people have been thinking about it for me,” she said. “I don’t think about it. Physically, it’s not a taxing job.”

Her longevity has brought accolades from fellow teachers as well.

“She’s a wonderful teacher,” said Goodrich. “It’s impressive that she’s on her third generation of kids there. She’s been a part of this town for a long time.”

When thinking back on where she could have taught and what she could have done, Broder is glad she chose the path she’s on now.

“I couldn’t work with the high school kids,” Broder said, “I’ve always felt fortunate that the career I chose was the right one.”