Green Bean Day School & Nursery

The Green Bean Day School and Nursery is an eco-friendly, nurturing environment for children aged six-weeks to six-years-old. Green Bean is proud to offer high-quality education and childcare in an environment thoughtfully designed to support the relationships between children, parents, and teachers.

Family owned and operated since 2009, Green Bean is Chicago’s first early childhood education program based on the acclaimed Reggio-Emilia Approach.

The Regio-Emilia Approach is an educational philosophy that fosters a child’s interests by:

• Developing verbal, social, motor, and critical-thinking skills through an age-appropriate art and play-based curriculum.
• An open and sunny environment, for the perfect setting to learn while engaging and discovering the five senses.
• Close collaboration between parents, teachers, and children.
• Documenting the child’s exploration and process of learning.

Open-ended discussions and long-term projects combine language, social studies, science, artistic expression, and dramatic play, providing an environment that encourages young children to actively explore and discover. Together, teachers and children question, investigate, and learn.

Projects are planned yet remain open to the environment and individual needs of the children. Since children are more engaged in learning when it’s related to their life experiences, the Green Bean strives to create an ever-evolving, stimulating, and meaningful educational experience. They guide the child’s explorations, providing the ideal amount of support.

Opportunities are also provided to teach children to make decisions, take responsibility, and learn through play in mixed-aged groups. Children are encouraged to think, ask questions, and come up with their own ideas about how the world works.

The physical environment is also important to a Reggio Emilia’s early childhood program. Green Bean is filled with indoor plants and natural light. It’s a warm and welcoming place, with a homey feel. The teachers also intentionally set up the classrooms with things displayed interestingly at the children’s eye-level. The walls are filled with the children’s artwork and photos of the children doing work.

Green Bean is also deeply committed to providing the highest quality organic meals and snacks. They’ve partnered with Gourmet Gorilla to provide the children with only the best foods. Collaborating dieticians, nutritionists, rural farmers, urban agriculturalists, gifted chefs, and organic food manufacturers, Gourmet Gorilla provides quality, organic meals to schools and daycare centers.