Supervising Teacher/Big hearts TEACHER

Matthew Gabard, also known as Mr. Matt is very excited to be a part of the Village Children’s Center team as he sees it as a perfect fit with his vision of kindness, cooperation and understanding.

He has been a preschool teacher, supervisor and administrator for 15 years and is always learning more from those around him.The play based curriculum is his favorite. He enjoys facilitating how communicate with one another and fostering problem solving skills and a general love of school. Some of his favorite daily activities are reading, singing, movement activities, open ended art and science activities and posing questions to the children.

Mr. Matt attended San Francisco State where he studied history. Eventually he developed a love for Early Childhood education and continues to study it to this day. He lived in San Francisco for many years before moving to the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. He now resides in Gardena and is happy to be a part of the South Bay community. His hobbies include playing bass guitar, collecting records and old comic books, reading, exercising and fantasy football.

BIG HEARTS TEACHER

Shizuka Kaga is very excited and pleased to be part of The Village Children’s Center and to work with the Big Hearts. Shizuka received her B.A. in Business Administration and M.A in Early Childhood Education from University of Central Oklahoma. In her past work experience she has worked for 6 years as a preschool teacher in Torrance, California.

Shizuka has a lifelong passion for nurturing children in their growth and has had a focus on providing a variety of open-ended learning material and activities, where she feels that children develop lifelong skills from play and hands on experiences. She is always striving to provide a purposeful and mindful environment and learning materials for children at these early ages.

In her spare time, Shizuka loves to develop children’s toys and publish children’s books. She takes great delight in watching children interact with her creations. Shizuka also enjoys spending time with her family doing fun activities such as crafting, hiking, baking, and teaching Japanese.

Big Hearts TEACHER

Junghwa Jung Choi feels so blessed to be a part of the beautiful school of the Village Children’s Center. Most of all, she has a strong passion and mission to help children learn and grow, which she made a promise to herself to serve God’s children, on the airplane above the JFK airport, NY in 2001. Now with almost 30 years of experience in the education field, she continues to follow her mission to touch children’s heart for learning.

Junghwa received Library & Information Science B.S. and worked as an ESL teacher in Korea and finished Master Degree for Childhood Education at Sage Graduate School (NY) in 2004. Since 2001, she has actively participated in a variety of programs at private school, public school, charter school, academic enrichment camp, and summer camp for Korean adopted children as a volunteer instructor and student teacher in upstate New York. After graduation, she worked as a bilingual instruction coordinator as well as director of a company - owned learning center, and the specialist of education franchise business in the New Jersey and Northeast area.  

As a preschool teacher as well as an earlier adopter for the newest international education resources, Junghwa loves to explore and experience a variety of technology tools and online education services for the early aged children. Even her most favorite hobby is collecting good books for children and unique educational resources. She always believes that “Learning Must be linked to daily life.” Effective learning should be linked to success and becomes a lifelong skill. Junghwa loves to sing and play with the children, in the midst of all the laughter. She thinks that a love and trust-based relationship is important when being with children.

In her spare time, Junghwa is working on her project, a special book series for children so they can enjoy the excitement of learning new things. She loves being with her family, and spending time with her amazing daughter, 11 years old, and funny husband, both who light up her life. Junghwa is so happy to be a part of the Big Hart Classroom, and looks forward to meeting new little friends and their parents!

Little Hands Teacher

Alyssa Lowery is very blessed and excited for the wonderful opportunity to work for the Village Children’s Center. She is currently enrolled at El Camino College and is working on her degree in Early Childhood Education. She has 6 years of experience with kids age 0-9 and loves being a teacher and working with kids. She has spent many years volunteering in special needs and summer school classrooms and has found teaching and working with children to be her true passion.

In her spare time she likes to hang out with her nieces, who are 3 and 5, spend time with her grandparents and loves to read. She can’t wait to meet you all and foster wonderful, healthy relationships with your children and to be a part of their learning experience! 

Little Hands Teacher

Stephany Martin feels very lucky and blessed to be a part of The Village Children’s Center’s family. She studied Child Development at Santa Monica College and received additional Early Childhood Administration units from UCLA. She has 10 plus years working with children ages 2-6 years old.

Stephany always had a fondness for working with young children. She knew early on when she was just a little girl that she would one day work at a school and become a Teacher. She loves exploring and helping children understand the world around them and watching their minds grow.

In her spare time, she loves spending time with her 1-year-old son, Noah, and her fiancé. Together they like to do fun things around town and go on adventures.

sUBSTITUTE TEACHER

Nilufahr Bahar, who goes by Nilu for short, is truly excited to join The Village Children’s Center Family! She received her B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Child and Adolescent Development at San José State University in May 2023. Currently, she is enrolled in El Camino College while applying to Master’s programs. As for experience working with children, during her last year at SJSU, she worked in the San José State Associated Students Child Development Center as a student assistant teacher. While working here, during her last semester, she also volunteered in a 4th-grade classroom as a teacher assistant for a college course. Both of these experiences truly solidified her passion for teaching and she is truly excited to gain more work experience here at The Village Children’s Center!

In her spare time, she likes to go on family outings, for example, every Saturday going to the Torrance Farmers Market. She also enjoys activities such as going to karaoke with friends, learning how to cook/bake new recipes online, and traveling to new places (fun fact she has traveled to 7 countries and 15 states!).

Weekly Chapel Coordinator

Dena Babb has served as Director of Children's & Family ministries at Riviera UMC since January 2012. In her previous life (before kids!), she worked in the nonprofit sector for a variety of organizations with a focus on volunteer program management. Dena is passionate about creating ministry and fellowship opportunities to meet the needs and interests of the ever changing congregation and community. VBS week is her favorite week of the year, but exhausts her so much that a week of vacation "off the grid" always comes next! In addition to her work at RUMC, Dena is also a blogger sharing her family's journey through life with the added obstacles of childhood mental illness and autism spectrum disorder.  In her spare time, she is an active volunteer in her children's schools, lover of music that has a good story to tell, avid reader and fan of binge watching great television. Her absolute favorite thing to do is enjoy a gorgeous view or a little bit of adventure with family.

Dena will be facilitating weekly chapel meetings for The Village Children's Center.

Music Teacher

Ashley Mills Monaghan is an award winning children's author and musician. She has a BFA in Film Production and Music from Chapman University and a postgraduate degree in Early Childhood Education from SNMCI - Dublin, Ireland. Ashley has over 20 years experience working with young children as a preschool teacher, piano teacher, music teacher, performer and mom.

Her children's book 'A Little Goes a Long Way' has received 5 awards. Shortly after its release, she kept busy touring the country to visit schools, festivals and museums for author events and performances. She has also been invited to speak at several teaching conferences over the years. She enjoys writing and producing her own songs for children with the goal of creating content with inspiring messages that is also suitable for everyone in the family. She also loves to use her own music when in the classroom.

During the pandemic, Ashley started releasing her own children’s songs. After her first single release of 'Wiggles,' Ashley received rave reviews on several media outlets, had radio play and was invited on several YouTube and PodCast shows for guest interviews. She was also labeled 'The One to Watch' by the Digital Journal. Her song 'If I Tell Myself I Can' won 3rd place in an international song competition. Ashley's first full album "Good Times" will be released very soon but you can listen to her single releases on every streaming platform. She is currently finishing up writing songs for an upcoming animated series.

Ashley has 2 sons, a husband and a chocolate lab. She loves the outdoors, camping, the beach, songwriting, the mountains, running and baking. She is excited to join the team at The Village Children's Center to provide her fun and engaging music curriculum to get your children excited about music! Check out more about Ashley and all her upcoming projects at www.ashleymillsmonaghan.comor follow on IG @ashleymillsmonaghan