Lakeshore Learning Materials

It all starts with one person taking a chance. In 1954, Ethelyn Kaplan, a single mother, defied the conventions of 1950s America—packing up her family and heading west to realize the dream of opening her own toy store. Soon after Ethelyn set up sho g her own toy store. Soon after Ethelyn set up shop in Northern California, educators began calling her for supplies, and Ethelyn discovered a higher purpose—serving teachers. Two generations later, Lakeshore remains true to Ethelyn’s founding principle of always listening to the customer—our guiding light as we strive to meet the needs of educators, schools and districts nationwide. Lakeshore has grown from that first brick-and-mortar store to a leading developer and retailer of top-quality classroom furniture and materials for early childhood programs, elementary schools and homes. Plus, we now offer a range of furniture options to support middle school and high school learning spaces. Today, we have a thriving e-commerce business, a national sales division with over 80 local reps around the country, multiple catalogs and 60+ retail locations to serve our customers. We attribute our growth to the more than 3,500 people who make up our team—a dynamic mix of veteran employees plus new talent. The combined efforts of our people allow us to reach for new heights—as we continue to experiment and grow. For example, we’ve expanded our export market, opened offices in Asia and built a second distribution center in Midway, Kentucky—increasing our inventory space to 2.4 million square feet. We also continue to reinvent ourselves and explore new areas. For example, we’ve introduced Flex-Space Furniture, Flex-Space Jr.® Furniture and Engage Modular Furniture to meet the needs of 21st-century classrooms. We also launched Design, Delivery & Installation by Lakeshore—our end-to-end service for bringing learning spaces to life. And to help educators meet specific needs, our Custom Solutions team works hand in hand with districts and nonprofits to create custom learning materials to support the needs of all learners. Lakeshore has been creating innovative furniture & materials designed by teachers since 1988. Working with a team of highly skilled engineers, our developers draw from their deep classroom experience to take Lakeshore products from ideas to realities—from first sketches and 3-D simulations to rigorously tested prototypes. And, to ensure quality and safety, every product we carry undergoes an average of more than 100 hours of development and testing before it reaches our customers. Over the years, Lakeshore has been able to achieve a great deal. But when we join forces with others, the results are truly something. Because of our collaborations with nonprofits and other important players in education, we have been able to affect the lives of millions. To see some of the exciting work we’ve been doing in the community with our partners in education, check out our partnerships page. ...view more