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Laurenzo

Early Childhood Education Center

Look Outside, My Love: How Laurenzo Early Childhood Center Opens Children to the World

Part of the “Houston Schools That Inspire” Series

By Meron Tekle

Most teachers spend their days reminding children to stop staring out the window. But at Ninfa Laurenzo Early Childhood Center, looking outside is the point.

From the moment I stepped through the doors, I felt it: this is not a place of compliance, but of curiosity. The usual alphabet posters and neon primary colors were absent. In their place were prints of the Eiffel Tower, student-painted owls, natural light, and museum-quality displays of children’s work. Here, even the walls whisper to young learners, “Open your eyes, my love. There is a world beyond these walls.”

And Laurenzo makes sure they see it.

What Makes Laurenzo Early Childhood Center Work: Key Elements

Environment as teacher

Intentional, thoughtfully curated spaces that foster student learning, reflecting community rather than compliance.

Schema-building approach

Developing rich background knowledge before focusing on isolated skills

Focus on Oral Language

Building vocabulary through topics worth knowing as a foundational element of literacy development

Child-centered exploration

Valuing creativity and curiosity over standardization

Codified best practices

Systems that preserve excellence while allowing for teacher creativity

A Museum of Belonging

The building may look like any other from the outside, but walk through its halls and you’ll realize: this is a living museum. Not the kind that archives the past behind velvet ropes, but one that invites children to touch, explore, and create the present.

There are no visible testing scores. No rigid pacing charts. Instead, every classroom is a curated environment of art, nature, and language—thoughtfully designed to reflect the communities it serves and the children who live within them.

Principal Janet Benavidez and her longtime instructional coach, Sarah Tovar, walked me through classrooms where students were deep in conversation, building vocabulary not through drills but through discovery. I saw students handling real objects, listening to real stories, and asking real questions.

This isn’t school as usual. It’s a reimagining of what school can be.

Schema Before Standards

In most early childhood classrooms, phonics guides the day. The letter of the week determines the lesson. But at Laurenzo, children don’t learn about insects because the letter “I” came up—they learn about bees because bees make honey. They learn about crickets because they hear them outside when “the stars at night are big and bright.”

This is schema-building in action: giving children rich knowledge and language before focusing on isolated skills. They aren’t just learning letters—they’re learning why the world matters.

Their Oral Language Lab, built in partnership with Rice University, centers vocabulary around “topics worth knowing.” The thinking is simple: if children know more, they understand more. And when they understand more, they read better, think deeper, and stay curious longer.

This is not about lowering the bar. It’s about raising the floor so that every child walks into the rest of their schooling with the knowledge to thrive.

Choice Over Conformity

Many early childhood centers chase standardization, believing it ensures fairness. But Laurenzo sees early learning as the time to expand possibility, not restrict it.

Mixed-age classrooms, dual language immersion, and extended time in conversation-rich play create a tapestry of learning that mirrors the real world. Students scaffold for one another. They tell stories. They build castles inspired by fairy tales. They live the curriculum, rather than perform it.

It’s a radical notion: that joy and excellence aren’t in conflict. Here, joy is the strategy.

Preserving Excellence Through Practice

Despite its warm, organic feel, Laurenzo’s brilliance is no accident. In education, we often rely on charismatic individuals to carry the magic—but when they leave, the system falters. Laurenzo has built something different.

At the heart of it is The Booklet—a living manual co-created by teachers that codifies the campus’s beliefs and best practices. Not to enforce uniformity, but to preserve clarity. It helps ensure that every child experiences deep, meaningful learning, no matter who’s teaching.

This is how you scale something beautiful: not through scripts, but through shared understanding.

Preparing Children for the World—and Themselves

The most powerful thing I witnessed at Laurenzo wasn’t a lesson or a product. It was a belief: Children are already whole.

They’re not vessels waiting to be filled. They’re thinkers, creators, explorers—and Laurenzo treats them that way. Every classroom says, “You belong here. Your ideas matter.”

When we talk about inspiring schools, we often look to test scores. But what I saw at Laurenzo can’t be fully measured. It lives in the language children use to describe a painting. It glows in the confidence with which they tell a story. It resonates in the calm assurance that their curiosity is safe here.

In a world where early childhood education is often reduced to routines and readiness checklists, Laurenzo reminds us what real readiness looks like: wonder, vocabulary, imagination, and belonging.

At Laurenzo Early Childhood Center, every child is both visitor and curator in a museum of ideas. They don’t just prepare for the test. They prepare for life.

This story is part of the “Houston Schools That Inspire” series. Explore more stories here →