'Where Learning and Play are One'
Enrollment for the 2025 school year begins in January. Please check back for open house schedule or email for more info.
About Us
our School
Lotus Heart is a play and nature based preschool program. Our program is open to potty trained 3-5 year olds. We are a half day program, operating from 9:00am-1:00pm, with varying schedule options. We are located in Southwest Portland across from beautiful Pendleton Park and Hayhurst Elementary School.
Play Based Curriculum
Children learn naturally through play and experiential learning. Children also learn naturally through direct observation and interaction with nature and the seasons and the elements. Lotus Heart strives to create a community of preschoolers that are learning through imaginary play and the natural world around them. We approach our classmates as family members; respect, manners, kindness and care are our foundation. We approach the world around us the same; the trees and birds and plants in our outdoor spaces are there to love and care for and learn from. In play and sharing space socially, children learn how to listen to one another, take turns, grow in patience and empathy. All of the foundations of reading, writing, math, and science are laid in the foundation of play and experience. We will learn letters by our friend's names, numbers and math by how many train tracks do we split between 4 friends, or how many chairs do we need to set out today...Puzzles, board games, measuring play dough ingredients, dividing supplies, writing out menus or airplane tickets or veterinary reports, feeling the wind from the north, or the bounce of the leaf pile, planting seeds and witnessing fruit are all the languages in which we will lay our academic foundations.
Our play is work, our work is play, and in this wholeness we grow in readiness to go out into the world...
Our Teacher- Brynn Anderson
Teacher Brynn has been working with young children for 29 years, working in many diverse school settings including a college lab school, a parent cooperative preschool, bilingual schools in Central America, and community preschool programs. Brynn has owned and operated Lotus Heart Preschool for 14 years in the Hayhurst neighborhood in SW Portland.
Brynn has a degree in Early Childhood Education and additional trainings in Waldorf, Emergent, Reggio Emilia, developmentally appropriate practices, inclusive care, yoga and mindfulness for children, and herbalism for children. She brings her conversational knowledge of Spanish and American Sign Language into the classroom as well.
Brynn has also been a presenter for teacher training and parenting workshops,
She has 4 children of her own, and loves music, gardening, and traveling to wild natural places, and is a practicing Herbalist.