A small school with a big heart.
SparkLab Learning was born from my own journey as a mother and educator — and a deep belief that the right environment helps children thrive. With a warm, whole-child approach rooted in European early-education traditions, I set out to build a place where children are truly known.
For years I volunteered at Ute's Kinderschule, the beloved German–English home preschool in Irvine, where Ute trained me — a place that shaped how I think about early learning. We have supported each other ever since, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside her. SparkLab carries that European early-learning heritage forward — the German language and traditions included, offered to every family who joins us, whether or not a word of German is spoken at home.
We're beginning intentionally small — a founding pilot in a Family Child Care home licensed for up to 6 children at a time, ages 2–6 — so every child is genuinely known, every day. That number is deliberate. It is half of what California allows a preschool teacher to supervise, and it is also, I believe, the smallest group that still gives a child a real social world: friends to negotiate with, disagree with, and be inspired by. One-to-one care is warm, but children this age learn an enormous amount from each other, and I didn't want to take that away from them.
As we grow into our commercial center, that standard comes with us — 1:6 for our youngest groups and never more than 1:8 for our oldest — along with the rest of our philosophy, unchanged.
Every child can shine. When we support them with love, they can shine in their own beautiful way.