International School in Nagoya, Japan

Discovery International School:
Discovery International School is located in a small residential neighborhood on the eastern border of Nagoya, in Nagakute Town. Two universities are nearby, along with a public elementary and junior high school. Parking spaces are adjacent to the neighborhood park, where we meet children in the morning for outdoor play. Our learning spaces are designed elegantly and with utmost devotion to promoting positive social interaction and concentration--we fashion our spaces as a comfortable, secure home away from home. Our walls are filled with children's work and words, rather than commercial posters, in order to help children develop a reflective, critical understanding of themselves as life-long learners.

Location and Facilities:

Our building provides abundant natural light and views of the outdoors with our ceiling-to-floor windows.

We view our learning environment as another teacher in and of itself. Our spaces invite and encourage safe independent exploration, creativity, social collaboration, and get-away spots for times when a child wishes to be alone.

A common meeting space, also used for musical and rhythmic activities and block building.

This group of children designed a blueprint and built their very own, real play house. Along the way, they learned real-life vocabulary, measurement skills and proportion, and how to work as a member of a team for a specific purpose. At Discovery, dramatic play props, a wide variety of art media and tools, musical instruments, scientific tools, and much more are all carefully selected and arranged to encourage independent exploration, creativity, cognitive thinking, and peer socialization.

This learning space is arranged for elementary school-aged children in our afternoon programs. Not pictured, additional space is allotted for independent and small-group creative work.