Welcome to Creative Kids

The Creative Kids Learning Garden Preschool

Our Mission:
The Creative Kids Learning Garden is a warm and nurturing environment where children and their families can come together, grow, and learn in a safe and enriched community.  The "Reggio" inspired curriculum centers around the annual growing cycle of a bountiful garden.  Our program is designed to foster each child's independance and capabilites.  We believe that children, when given the opportunity to fully explore and experience their environment, will become eager and active learners.

Our History:
The Learning Garden is a part of the evolution of Creative Kids, an arts enrichment center for children, founded in 1990 by Cheryl Beck-Benjamin.  Thie initial concept for the preschool was conceived in 1994.  After an initial search for space was put on hold, the concept was archieved, only to be brought back to life more than a decade later.  Bringing this new seed to fruition took nearly three years of planning, tremendous imagination, inspriation, and a major construction project.

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Preschool hours: 9:00am-12:30pm •  Afterschool enrichment(optional): 12:30pm-2:00pm

Students may be enrolled 5 days/week, 3 days/week(mwf) or 2 days/week(tu/th)

For more information, please call us (310)473-6090 or email us at cheryl@mycreativekids.com

Class and Garden news:

Spring 2010: It has been an exciting year as our garden has taken an entirely new shape.  We have moved our tomato garden, which is now exploding, and now we are preparing the back garden for squash, zuchinni and pumpkins.  We are determined to get pumpkins one of these years, maybe in time for Halloween.  Our sweet peas are climbing up the new trellis' we've built for them, and soon we'll be eating them off the vines.  Our strawberries this year were the most delicious ever, and our fruit trees have been getting stronger and growing more fruit for us.  Our only sad garden news is that half our sunflowers are refusing to sprout- we're not sure why, but we'll just have to dig up the soil, add more compost and try again.  Sometimes you cannot predict what happens in the garden.

We have also been busy in the classroom, working, learning, playing, and becoming independant.  We learned about different artists this year and got to create our own "art" using their mediums and emulating their techniques- kind of...  it was great fun as we explored Van Gogh's sunflowers, Monet's water colors, Matisse's paper collage and so much more.  (Jackson Pollack- definitely an outdoor activity.)

It has been a wonderful year as we prepare for yet another culmination and year end.  It is hard to believe that it is almost 3 years since we moved out of our space on Olympic Bl. Our preschool here had definitely taken a life of it's own.

Summer 2009: We are preparing for Preschool Graduation, which will take place in the fire station community center, just a few steps away from our school.  Afterwards, we will celebrate with a family barbecue in our garden preschool.  Garden camp is currently open and available to all students.

February 2009: As our garden's "resting" period is coming to a close, we are preparing to begin our spring planting.  Digging, of course, is one of the most productive and fun activities in the garden, as it give us a chance to explore all that lives with us in our garden, as we mix the compost into our soil to prepare for our spring plants.  In the meantime, we have made good use of our winter.  In December we celebrated the holidays by honoring the traditions of all of our class members, which felt like a journey around the world.  January was literacy month, and we counted the books we read with our giant literacy caterpillar, which stretched around our room.  Many thanks to all the parents who came in to read, and to all those who donated new books to our classroom.  February is the month to explore our community, which, of course, included two visits to the Fire Station!  What a treat to have such a great field trip just a few steps away from our school, and we had such a good time!  Now, spring is on it's way and it's time to get busy again.

November 2008:  As we prepare for our annual Thanksgiving celebration, it's time to reflect and be thankful for all we have accomplished this  year.  Just this time last year, as we prepared to move into our beautiful school, our garden was bare.  Since that time we have grown broccoli, sweet peas, lettuce, sunflowers, peppers, watermelon, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, zuchinni, eggplant,  tomatoes,  grapes, strawberries, oranges, tangerines, kumquats, limes, grapefruit, pomegranate, lemons, parsley, sage, lemon balm, mint, (chocolate mint yum),  oregano, thyme, rosemary, lavendar , basil, and more...  As a part of our Thanksgiving tradition, we will try to use all of the different kinds of things we've grown in the garden as a part of our feast.  As of right now, our garden is in it's transitional phase, as we prepare the winter garden.  Our crops of corn and and pumpkins did not go so well this year- we will try again next year. Now we are planting rainbow chard, onions, lettuce (our first  crop was eaten up by some hungry squirrels),  and replenishing our strawberry pots and herb gardens.  As a part of our Native American unit, we built the frame of a teepee and planted sweet peas and bush beans that will grow up into the frame.  It will be a great trellis for our plants to thrive, as well as a wonderful garden hideaway.

July 2008:Summer is here and we have been busy planting and harvesting. Our broccoli harvest was amazing.  Our plants were gigantic and the broccoli was delicious. We had some for snack and made broccoli cheese soup.  Our lettuce was also a great success- lots of salad.  We are finished with the broccoli and lettuce and have replaced them with cantelope, watermelon and yellow squash.  Our sugar snap peas are in full bloom and are delicious right off the vine.  Our zuchini plant (which was supposed to be one of the cucumber plants..oops) has given us so many zuchini.  We are busy making zuchini bread, and and just eating it raw (or sometimes grilled...yummm). Our sunflowers have grown faster than we can measure every day. One has now reach the roof of our preschool!  We have had a lot of references to Jack and the Beanstalk.  The flowers are so big, and we are having fun watching as they change every day.  Soon, the flowers will make the seeds and then we can eat them, (and save a few to plant again.)  Our pepper plants are finally growing peppers, boy that sure took a long time. Our pickling cucumbers, on the other hand, have come very quickly, so we're getting ready to make pickles! We have worked hard to "wrangle" our tomatoes, and finallly we have lots of red ripe tomatoes for eating and cooking.  We think the strawberry plants in our strawberry pots have finally reached the end of their spring cycle.  The strawberries are coming slower, and they just dont taste all that good anymore.  We were amazed at how long our strawberry season lasted, and we're looking forward to planting them again next year.  Our new fruit trees are doing very well, and the grapevine is incredible.  Our new project is the cornfield- we finally planted the seeds, and our plants are almost a foot high.   When the plants are big enough, we'll plant pumpkins underneath. Hopefully they'll be ready in time for Halloween.  Our garden yields much more than fruits and vegetables.  It gives us new learning experiences every day.