La Casita De Anaya Brings Child-Led Learning to Ingleside

Tucked on a quiet Ingleside street is a new early childhood education program designed to blend feeding a child's curiosity with teaching.

Spanish and English-language preschool La Casita De Anaya was founded by Ingleside resident and former San Francisco Unified School District dual-language immersion teacher Emma Zevin. Inspired by her years in education and by her daughter, Anaya, Zevin said she crafted the program to target and honor early toddler development through an emergent curriculum.

“I feel like having been in education for so long, I had a sense of what would be demanded of Anaya in elementary school and what I was trying to visualize what I would want her very first experience of school and school community to be like,” Zevin said. “As I was thinking about that and starting to do a little bit of research, I realized not everything I was looking for necessarily existed, and so I decided I wanted to build it for her, our community and their families.”

Zevin said La Casita will focus its practices on the Reggio Emilia-inspired approach, a method that Zevin learned while working at an early childhood program post-college, which includes child-led and inquiry-based learning through a play-based style.

Outdoor instruction is a major component of the school's pedagogy. | Anne Marie Kristoff/Ingleside Light

The school will open in the fall. | Anne Marie Kristoff/Ingleside Light

That technique, which will be paired with Spanish language immersion, mixes meaningful relationships, abundant outdoor time and strong partnerships with families at events like parent and caregiver enrichment evenings.

The program’s facility is run out of Zevin’s home and features three learning rooms, including an area to work on fine-motor skills, an area for group or community work with activities like singing, reading, games and nap time and an outdoor play area where children can engage with natural elements through sensory activities like gardening.

La Casita offers two-day program options for $1,500 a month and four-day options for $3,000 a month for year-round schooling and will have a three children to one teacher ratio.

Zevin, a graduate of the Buena Vista Dual-Language Immersion program, holds a bilingual teaching credential and a master’s in teaching from the University of San Francisco. She will be co-teaching with Edilma Castañón. The duo first met when Zevin taught one of Castañón’s children at Paul Revere Elementary School 10 years ago, where Castañón also volunteered in her classroom.

Edilma Castañón and Zevin will co-teach at La Casita. | Courtesy and Anne Marie Kristoff/Ingleside Light

Castañón, whose native language is Spanish, comes to the program with a background of working with children and families as a volunteer, certifications in CPR and child abuse and neglect, and is currently studying early childhood development.

“As a mother, I know how important it is to find someone you can truly trust with your children,” Castañón said. “My goal is to provide every family with the same sense of peace and confidence that I once felt when my own children were cared for by someone who was responsible, trustworthy, patient, and loving. I strive to create a safe, nurturing and happy

environment where every child feels valued, supported and cared for as if they were my own.”

La Casita is currently enrolling children between 18 and 26 months for its opening in the fall. Facility tours are available for interested families.

Though La Casita is focused on children’s early years, Zevin hopes they take lessons they learn with them, like self-expression and the bilingual foundation, into other academic or professional settings.

“We can offer that balance between a nurturing, loving homeschool experience paired with a very thoughtful and mindful approach to designing curriculum and making instructional choices that is based on a lot of teaching experience,” Zevin said. “Ultimately, because we are so relationship-based and so led by children, La Casita will be a place where children this age will really have an opportunity to develop that love for learning that will take them through the rest of their educational journey.”