Why We Chose Growing Garden Preschool in Redondo Beach

When my wife and I started looking at preschools for our son, we were not looking for a Jewish school specifically. We were looking for the right fit for our kids and for us. We ended up at Growing Garden Preschool in Redondo Beach. Three years and two kids later, it is one of the best decisions we have made as parents.

Growing Garden is the only Jewish preschool in the South Bay built on the Reggio Emilia approach. This approach treats the classroom itself as a teacher and lets kids learn through curiosity and hands-on exploration rather than worksheets. It sits on Vail Ave in Redondo Beach and draws families from Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and beyond. On paper, that combination sold us. In practice, what has kept us there is the community.

We have both of our kids enrolled now, our 5 year old son and our 3 year old daughter. The community piece is not a marketing line. Our son's teacher had our family over for a Shabbat dinner at her home, which is not something you expect from a school. We have made friends there we expect to keep for years, even once our kids scatter across different elementary schools the way South Bay families always do.

My wife is not Jewish, and she was the one who fell for the school hardest. She will tell you it is the warmth of the school and the strength of the community as much as the academics, and the academics are genuinely strong too.

The clearest evidence for us has been our kids. Our son was a shy kid before Growing Garden. He has come out of his shell, made real friends, and now looks forward to school every single day, which was not something I could have said about him two years ago. Our daughter rarely smiled in photos. In the daily photos the school sends home now, she is smiling ear to ear.

We did not send our kids there because we needed a Jewish preschool. We stayed because Growing Garden turned out to be a genuine community in a part of the South Bay where community is harder to find than people think, and because we watched both of our kids change for the better because of it.

If you are a South Bay family weighing preschool options, it is worth a visit: https://www.growinggardenpreschool.com/