Children's Community School is a progressive elementary school in Van Nuys, California, north of Los Angeles. For 25 years, CCS has stressed hands-on learning, a diverse environment, and involvement with the community around it. Guided by its founding director, the staff, and its board of directors, CCS looks forward to the future. Admissions applications are accepted and evaluated on a year-round basis.

 

 

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Header photograph of Graduation 2006 copyright © 2006 by Gary Leonard.

Site design by Ezra Shapiro.

General content copyright © 2005-2006 by Children's Community School. Signed content © 2006 by individual authors. All rights reserved.

Education is a hands-on exercise

Children's Community School has been enriching the lives of children for more than 25 years. But our philosophy reaches back about a century to the work of the American educator John Dewey. Often called "the father of American education," Dewey's ideals of learning by doing and education for democracy form the building blocks of our curriculum.

Indeed, building blocks themselves play an important role at CCS, as do woodworking, art and math projects, print shop, student theatre, music and movement, and frequent field trips.

All of these activities augment the more traditional academics.

We believe, as Dewey did, that education is fundamentally a hands-on exercise, that ideas are tools for inspiration and innovation, that experiences form the fabric of our lives. Using materials like blocks, wood, and paint, students increase their powers of observation, reconstruct what they have observed, and deepen their understanding of the real world around them.