About Teachers

Viera - Principal

Viera is experienced and mature Montessori directress, fully devoted, with passion and love, to education of young children. During her entire career, lasting over twenty years, she has been involved in the early childhood education.

She has graduated as Nursery Teacher (ECE) from the prestigious pedagogical academy in former Czechoslovakia, having completed the extensive studies of child psychology and pedagogics. In recognition of her extraordinary educational skills, she has been later appointed as Head of Rational and Education Section of Department of Education and Culture in Kosice, Slovakia.

Viera is a bright observer, able to define child’s individual needs. She is sensitive, but firm Montessori directress with tender and respectful approach. High creativity and craftsmanship skills are her natural attributes. Viera is patient, confident and committed in working with young children.

Eager to explore new ideas, she has passed her initial Montessori training (Integrated Education Course) lectured by AMI teacher in Europe (Budapest and Prague). She participated in the unique development of one of the first Montessori schools in Slovakia. The traditional daycare transformed into the unique Montessori school became the great success and immediate gained sound reputation. As enthusiastic Montessori directress, she elaborated great part of Montessori Education Curriculum for the school as well as performed Montessori workshops for teachers from Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. Being naturally curious, she passed Kinesiologic course – Three in one concept.

She continued with her Montessori training in Canada and was awarded with The Pan American Montessori Society Diploma. She has been teaching as a head directress over 4 years at Montessori schools in Markham and Toronto. Her Montessori training continued and she received The Canadian Montessori Teacher Institute Diploma.

Viera continues exploring new challenging areas and has recently successfully completed course of Autism Interventionist at Seneca College.

Viera is the truly complex and extraordinary talented Montessori directress, having deep understanding of Montessori philosophy. She loves and admires children and very naturally encourages them on their path to make discoveries, solve problems and think independently.

Ima (Jung-Im) – Casa Head Teacher

Ima (Jung-Im) is a certified MACTA Montessori teacher and has been teaching children to love learning and be enchanted by nature for over a decade. She holds a Bachelor Degree in English literature and language. Upon her graduation she worked with various age groups from 3 to 15 in English speaking schools in Korea over 4 years.

Then she moved to Dublin, Ireland and remained there for 8 years. Ima believes that childcare is such an important job and Montessori pedagogy is one of the best child centred setting where children can learn and grow in a safe and caring environment. Therefore, she decided to study Montessori pedagogy and attained Montessori diploma from reputable Portobello Institute in Dublin. During her studies, she volunteered at a number of Montessori schools. After the completion of her studies, she worked as a Montessori head directress as well as a toddler teacher for 4 years.

She moved to Toronto in 2017 and successfully transferred her Irish Montessori qualification to MACTA accredited Montessori diploma from Canadian Montessori Teachers Education and has been working as a head Casa Montessori directress since September 2017.

Ima has a lovely gentle manner with the children and the children in her class enjoy her sense of fun. She brings her creativity to the children through art and music. Ima likes to implement various strategies and concepts in the classroom and she is extremely supportive during children’s adaptation to Montessori environment. Children love her reassuring smile as well as soft voice and feel very happy and safe in her classroom. She generates nurturing environment in which every child can grow, build self-confidence and acquire new skills.

Ima is a very open-minded person with high energy and enthusiasm. Having worked in Canada, Ireland, and Korea she can connect with children from many different and diverse backgrounds. She also provides close supervision while giving them the best education possible. Ima believes that the best way to teach and to help children grow is through a well-organised lesson plan and prepared environment which will keep them interested and focused on learning through fun and participation.

Kimberly – Toddler Teacher

Kimberly graduated from Early Childhood Education Program of George Brown College. She enjoys working with children because she believes there is nothing more rewarding than watching children growing and seeing the smile on their faces as they learn and discover new and exciting life experiences, knowing that you had a little part in it.

She has naturally embraced Montessori philosophy and finished her Infant Montessori Toddler course at Toronto Montessori Institute (TMI). She graduated in June 2020.

Kimberly has volunteered in kindergarten classes at her elementary school as well as high school co-op placement at another elementary school. Kimberly has been also working as nanny for couple of different families, most recently being at a family with two young boys, whom she was taking care for over 3 years. She has 4 young nieces and nephews whom she loves spending time with and babysitting most of the weekends.

While working with children of different ages, her natural feeling and passion directed her into taking care for toddler and she really enjoys spending time with young children. Being a very gentle and caring person, respectful to children, she offers them love, encouragement and praise. Kimberly built positive and trusting relationships with all our young children and supports those little ones who need an extra attention.

She enjoys being artistic and loves to paint on her time off. Her incredible creativity is demonstrated in fabulous and inventive art creations prepared by our toddlers as she loves to experiment with various art techniques.

Kimberly continuously maintains a safe and healthy environment, while monitoring proper hygiene. She has great observational skills and able to plan developmentally appropriate activities that spark interest, promote exploration, self-esteem and cooperation.

Children feel very happy and comfortably in her classroom. She generates nurturing environment, where every child can grow, build self-confidence and acquire new skills. With her sensibility and tremendous amount of patience, she is helping young children on their way to develop their full personalities though gentle and supportive guidance.

Nina - Piano Teacher

Nina is extremely gifted, multitalented, and published artist with deep love for music, painting, poetry and teaching among her other virtues.

Performing at the piano, since the age of 5, everything that Nina does stems from her relationship to the piano. She graduated from secondary music school in Ukraine with a piano and theory major and completed a postsecondary specialized program in theory, piano, voice, composition, and conducting.

Nina is awards and prize-winning classically trained composer, symphony orchestra conductor, classical pianist, musicologist, music theory specialist, educator, and vocalist. She has nearly 30 years of music experience. Nina has performed internationally in various styles and composes piano pieces for other pianists as well. Her music is well spread and recognized over Spotify, iTunes, Amazon as well as YouTube.

Her artistic experience includes solo classical piano recitals, voice and piano recitals featuring her original compositions and performance as lead soloist, choirs, ensembles, and solo vocal performances in various styles.

She holds the Associate Diploma and the Licentiate Diploma (which are the highest academic standings awarded by The Royal Conservatory of Music Certificate Program in classical piano performance), along with BFA (Honours), MA, and Ph.D. degrees in Music from York University in Toronto. Nina also received The Royal Conservatory of Music Teacher of Distinction award for her piano and music programs.

Her multi-artistic experience enabled her to envision an effective method of teaching and developing musical and artistic talents within children, which in turn inspired her Ph.D. research on her new Integrated Arts Method TM (IAM). She recently published a book, Poems and Art, and a piano performance album, Radiant Classics.

She has researched Montessori method in her doctoral studies in the field of education curriculum, psychology and methodology. She found scientific proof for the effectiveness of Montessori education, which is in line with her own approach.

Teaching arts programs is Nina’s passion. Her teaching expertise includes piano (all levels, including improvisation), theory, voice, songwriting as well as composition.

Nina has retained vivid connection with her inner child, which makes her work with kids especially fun and joyful. She loves teaching children piano, singing and percussion ensemble and choir. She taught in several schools across the world and in Toronto and works with the intention of unlocking creative and mental potential of her students.

We are proud Nina has joined our school and through her piano lessons instills a lifelong love of music in our students.

Emma – Dance teacher

Emma is extremely talented performing artist and choreographer. Choreography as one of the most significant aspects related to dance has been her lifelong journey.

She is a graduate from the Canadian Dance Company, West End Studio Theatre and Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts.

Emma specializes in gymnastics, ballet, jazz, tap, urban, contemporary and creative movement (young children). Her creative movement class consists of a codified warm up circle, centre dance play and exercises, stretching and then finishing with props and games.

She also teaches dance, voice and theatre/acting. Emma have taught at various institutions, after school programs, summer intensives and drop-ins for adults.

Emma has choreographed musical theatre (Shrek, Dora the Explorer, Hair, Seussical the Musical, The Little Mermaid, Fame, Little Women LOT/FirstActProd) and children's touring theatre (Little Red Theatre). She has also choreographed music videos for Juno award winning Splash n' Boots and with production company Yeah! Films for Canadian bands Seaway and Pin Up.

Her work has been shown at festivals like Fever After Dark. Emma has taught dance, musical theatre and scene study with several different Toronto based companies. Her work with the bold indie theatre company, Echo Productions, has given her the chance to choreograph stories like, Bonnie and Clyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dog Sees God and Charles Manson: Son of Man.

Emma is also a seasoned performer with international experience. She has toured across the United States (Hair National Tour-Starvox Ent.), Europe (Hair European Tour), Maritimes Canada (The Great Big Boo) and South America (Norwegian Cruise Line).

In 2018, she launched her independent dance company, Dance Fachin with their premiere work, Worldly Women. The show won the prestigious Jury's Choice Award (Ottawa Fringe) and Patron's Pick Award (Island Fringe).

In early 2019, she performed in the first regional production (since it's run on Broadway) of An American in Paris with Arizona Broadway Theatre. There she was in the female ensemble, singing, dancing and en pointe. Most recently, she has been dancing in various music videos with MMEntertainment.

Emma is currently showing her full-length dance work, The Fourth R: reduce, reuse, recycle, Revolutionize. The Fourth R has toured across Canada (Edmonton, Charlottetown, Halifax), debuted in Toronto on Earth Day 2022.

This in-the-field experience as a performer has greatly influenced her to become an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. She strives to make a safe space for students to grow and take chances and believe that Arts Education is an amazing tool for self expression, understanding the world on a cultural level and learning to work together despite differences.

We are privileged having Emma in our team and children are enjoying her dance classes very much.