Christina, born in Long Beach, California, spent much of her childhood in the Marshall Islands. Upon graduating from Kwajalein Junior-Senior High School, Christina returned to California to attend UC Santa Cruz. Christina holds a BA in Psychology and a Graduate Certificate in Education, both from UC Santa Cruz, a Clear California Multiple-Subject Teaching Credential, and Montessori certification from the North American Montessori Center. She has been a teacher for 16 years, with experience teaching in a wide variety of programs including public elementary, private Montessori school, international school and overseas ESL programs.
Christina and her husband Bob share a love of meeting new people and seeing new places. Together they spent 2 years in Nagoya Japan, from 1995 to 1997, teaching English with the Nagoya YMCA English College. Towards the end of their stay in Japan, Christina gave birth to their son, Patrick. They returned to Northern California and, 2 years later, their daughter, Aya, was born. The family postponed further travel for a number of years so that Christina could be tested for, and finally complete donating a kidney to her mother in January 2004. However, in 2005 the entire family relocated back to Nagoya Japan so that Bob could complete his dissertation research towards his PhD in Sociology.
When she isn’t guiding young minds, Christina stays busy raising her two children, proofreading her husband’s dissertation, devouring books, writing poetry for her own amusement and admiring the antics of the family’s two very strange cats.
The training of the teacher who is to help life is something far more than the learning of ideas. It includes the training of character; it is a preparation of the spirit.
- Dr. Maria Montessori
Christina Hoover Moorehead
Co-Director
Shima Daniels
Owner/Director
Whispering Oak Montessori Academy is the realization of a dream Shima Daniels has had since she was a five-year-old playing schoolhouse at her home in Singapore. Today, she brings to that dream a great deal of management and teaching experience, as well as a special knack for developing creative programs for children. She has over a decade of teaching experience working with very young children, which began in Singapore, where she managed a Music Academy, and then went on to join with her best friend in establishing an international Montessori school in Sri Lanka. She also gained valuable business management experience along the way, both at the Music Academy, and as Project Manager for several Board of Investments Projects for GoldWing Motors Group of Companies involving Japan, Taiwan and China, in Sri Lanka.
In 1998, with her three daughters, Shima relocated to the U.S., where she married Ed Daniels and the family settled in Orangevale. Seven years ago, she and Ed added another daughter to their family of girls, Laynee, now a fourth-grader at Green Oaks Fundamental Elementary School. After arriving in the U.S, Shima assisted her husband in their family-owned business and taught for several years at a private Montessori school in Orangevale.
During her free time, Shima loves to cook and read. She also enjoys spending time with her husband, whom she credits for helping make her dream come true, She also spends as much time as possible with her growing children. The love of music has always been one of the unifying pleasures of the family, both singing and dance, and it is one of the interests and talents that Shima will incorporate into the school's curriculum.
Whispering Oak Montessori Academy
Discovering the Spirit of Learning
Stacy, is the Lead Teacher of our Explorers preschool classroom. Stacy has a B.A. in Child Developments and obtained her Montessori Teacher Certification from AMS. Stacy brings patience and understanding to the classroom setting, allowing the children to blossom and thrive at their own pace in a warm, caring environment.
Melissa Yount has been a practicing yogini for the past nine years. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2004 with a BS in Child Development. Through her classes at Cal Poly she used the unique approach of integrating yoga into many of her school projects. What she found was that children truly love yoga and they wanted to learn more about the poses and breathing techniques. They would continually ask when the next yoga time was and she would catch them doing poses on their own. This interest and passion to learn from the children led her to pursue her interest and passion in kids' yoga further. In 2006 she began her rigorous year program through Yogakids International and graduated in October 2007 becoming a Certified Yogakids Facilitator and Yogakids Trainer. Yogakids has been featured in Time, Child, ABC News, CNN, PBS, and Yoga Journal and has been endorsed by Dr. Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil, MD. Her year training with Yogakids along with her highly valued education earned through Cal Poly has given her the skills and knowledge to provide the best preschool yoga program to your children.
