Leport School, Lomita

At LePort, we help our students acquire the essential knowledge, thinking skills, and strength of character required to flourish as joyous children today, and as successful adults tomorrow. Our unique program emphasizes the relationship between the academically challenging material presented in the classroom, and the breadth of experiences children have in their lives outside of the classroom. Each of our infant rooms welcomes children as young as 12 weeks of age. Our prepared environments have developmentally appropriate materials and activities that support the child through each stage of infant growth. Because we “follow the child,” we provide a variety of environments where infants can explore based upon her curiosity and mobility, not just her age. Our classrooms are large, open spaces, framed by low open shelves which display a variety of educational materials or “works” from which a child can choose freely. The attractive materials—made from brightly painted wood, ceramic, metal, or glass—are specially designed to be “self-correcting” and lend themselves to repeated practice. A child using them can independently gauge his own performance, without needing constant feedback from a teacher, and so learning becomes a natural, self-reinforcing process. Classroom furniture is child-sized and can easily be moved about by the children, who thereby learn to adapt the classroom space to many different uses.