Happy 75th anniversary to La Playa Cooperative! In 1948, a handful of parents gathered to begin a cooperative preschool, working together – with a teacher – to take care of their children and teach them through a play-based curriculum. The families began using backyards and eventually, an empty lot on Keystone Avenue in Culver City. […]







La Playa Sustainability Committee Report 22-23
Composting Program started October 2022 Established two bins and composting signage Almost all La Playa organic waste is now composted! At 6-month mark (April 4) we estimate: 230 lbs of organic waste diverted from landfills Generation of nutrient-rich soil Reductions in CO2 Early childhood education regarding separating waste, including composting Circle Time by Danielle Worm […]





La Playa Week!
In 1988, upon La Playa’s then-40th anniversary, Culver City’s City Council declared the week of April 25th as “La Playa Week.”We are still celebrating!This year, we held our 75th Anniversary party during La Playa Week!

La Playa Named Best Private School!
La Playa Cooperative Nursery School was recently named the BEST PRIVATE SCHOOL in Culver City/West Los Angeles! The awards program hosted by Westside Today garnered more than 27,000 votes from around the community. La Playa was listed among some wonderful schools in the Los Angeles area and we’re so grateful to be nominated along with […]





Building Empathy
Empathy is a very important topic of development at La Playa. We talk about it during our “parent talkovers.” And we practice it daily with the preschoolers. Empathy is our ability to imagine how another person is feeling in a specific situation and respond to them with care. This takes a while for young children […]


The Quiet Space
We created a quiet space in our classroom. It is basically a table with a tablecloth on it (hanging down slightly to create a feeling of privacy). Underneath it we placed pillows and a cushiony rug. Due to Covid we had removed many places where the children would be placed next to each other. We […]

An Interview with Teacher Ruth
Teacher Ruth recently retired from La Playa Cooperative Nursery School after working here for almost three decades. She has been an important part of La Playa all these years and has helped to bring La Playa into the twenty-first century. Ruth added a lot of great ideas to the classroom along with fantastic parent education […]

Growing Potatoes with Preschoolers
Planting & Growing In the fall of 2021 our planters were empty. The beauty of a parent-participation preschool is that parents are actively involved, so one of our parents brought in some potatoes for us to plant. The children planted the potatoes and took great care watering them over the next four and a […]

Zoom Open House tours start on March 10th!
We are starting up our Zoom Open House tours of our school, beginning on Thursday March 10th, 2022 at 2:30pm! From here on out, we will be having our Zoom tours every 2nd Thursday of each month. For the Zoom link and more details, please email: director@laplayacooperative.com

Learning Through Play on a Rainy Day
Living in Los Angeles, there isn’t a lot of experience with rain. However, the last few months have had a number of rainy days. Usually parents like to keep their children inside to keep them dry during these days, but at La Playa Cooperative we go outside when it rains. We know that this is […]