At LePort Montessori Irvine Mandarin children are able to experience an authentic, nurturing Montessori environment, with the added benefit of full immersion in Mandarin Chinese. At our school, you’ll join a community of families who are committed to giving their child the gift of bilingualism in a joyful, natural way, just as part of going to preschool each day. Both teachers in each of our classrooms are native Chinese speakers, and speak with the children and with each other in Mandarin. As our oldest students have been in this immersive environment for several years (our school opened in 2014, and we run three-year mixed-age classrooms for preschool/kindergarten) they, too, contribute to Chinese being just in the air, so younger children can absorb the language naturally. All this learning and living of Chinese happens in a Montessori environment where children gain what we call Knowledge for Life: the essential knowledge, thinking skills and strength of character needed to flourish as joyous children today, and as successful adults tomorrow.

Our school is located in the heart of Irvine, in the Westpark neighborhood, easy to reach from the 5 and 405. While most of our community comes from Irvine and Tustin, a good number of families commute to our school from cities all over Orange County, as far south as San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Niguel, as far north as Rossmoor and Villa Park, and west to Newport Beach, so their children can benefit from the unique combination of Montessori and Chinese immersion.

Children at our school are surrounded by a beautiful environment. The bright, spacious classrooms with direct access to the outdoors are equipped with a full set of Montessori materials, including books and language materials in Mandarin Chinese, using Zhuyin phonetics and traditional characters. Our teachers make Chinese culture come to life with stories, songs, and many cultural elements in the classrooms, from art on the wall to decorative accents and Chinese containers for the many activities in the classroom. Two age-appropriate natural playgrounds surround our school, and invite the children to creative, active play in the outdoors.

Our team of passionate educators look forward to meeting you, showing you around our school, and sharing their passion for authentic Montessori education. As Montessori is not a trademarked term, Montessori schools vary widely in quality: some daycares and preschools use the name for marketing, without delivering on the promise of a great education. Not so at LePort! Our leadership team is committed to the union of Montessori and Mandarin Chinese immersion: our Head of School, Ms. Katherine Yang, fell in love with LePort Montessori and the Mandarin Chinese immersion program as a parent, and helped start the program in 2014. In addition to our teachers, several of our admin team—including Liling Morris, our Business Manager—are fully bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese, and are happy to speak with you about our programs in either language.

Explore our programs. Look at our photo gallery. Read our staff bios and parent reviews.
Then schedule a tour: seeing is believing!