About

The Village Children's Center provides an enriching, supportive, and professional environment for children, ages 2 to 5. As a developmental preschool, children learn through play and experience the love taught by Christ. Through fostering an inclusive environment and  providing opportunities for developmentally appropriate service projects, our mission is to help parents raise children who use empathy and compassion towards all. 

Providing a play-based, developmentally appropriate curriculum

We nurture children’s positive sense-of-self through a supportive and challenging environment, and exposure to a wide variety of activities and experiences to foster social, cognitive, and physical skills:

  • Open-ended and focused arts and crafts

  • Building with a variety of materials

  • Self-regulation exercises including yoga and prayer

  • Independent and guided pretend play 

  • Problem solving in play and social interactions

  • Number concepts incorporated in daily routine 

  • Language development through exposure to abundant conversation and interactive story times (including A.S.L. exposure)

  • Pre-reading activities with a focus on nursery rhymes and letter play

  • Health and fitness provided through snack and intentional movement

  • Social play with peers throughout the day, observed and guided by teachers

  • Extended learning projects when curiosity needs further support

  • Age appropriate fostering of inclusivity, empathy and compassion

  • Faith and character development through weekly chapel times

It takes a village to raise a child, and we honor that notion by partnering with our families. We encourage community through parent education opportunities, family connection events, and the open exchange of ideas with the director and teachers. 

Serving our community for over 50 years

The Village Children’s Center is a ministry of Riviera United Methodist Church as part of our commitment to supporting families in the community. This commitment dates back to the founding of Riviera United Methodist Preschool (RUMP) in 1974. RUMP was a developmental preschool where children learned through play alongside their parents in a parent-participation model. In 2017, RUMP became The Village Children’s Center at Riviera UMC so we could continue to support the community in a way that best meets the needs of families today.

Our Teachers Understand

Attending preschool is only half the picture. Here at The Village Children’s Center, our staff strives to create daily curriculums that not only nurture, but challenge and exercise our young students’ developing minds. Adhering to the principles of the NAEYC, our goal is to provide our students with valuable resources and positive experiences that will lay the foundation for their continued growth and development.

DIRECTOR

Yuli Mihara

  • Yuli Mihara received her B.A. in Child Development and M.A in Child Development from California State University, Los Angeles. She has been directing and mentoring teachers, as well as teaching young children between the ages 2 to 5 since 2004. Her professional interests focus on social, emotional and cognitive development, and she published a study called, “Pre-Service Teachers’ Self Reported DAP Beliefs in Relations to The Quality of their Early Childhood Classroom Practices” with CSULA. In addition, she was invited to speak at CSULA University’s symposium about her study and was selected to present her research at the Society for Research in Child Development in Seattle, Washington.

    Yuli is excited to be the Director of The Village Children’s Center. She believes that building a strong foundation in the first five years of a child’s life is crucial. At The Village Children’s Center her goals are to provide a safe, nurturing and engaging environment where children can explore and play. Additionally her hope is to build strong connections between home, school and church to help ease children’s transition into the next level of their academic success.

SUPERVISING TEACHER/BIG HEARTS TEACHER

Matthew Gabard

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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 deeply passionate about her creative project, Multilingual Picture Word Book Series – JH & KH’s Magical Picture Word Books. She recently released JH & KH’s Magical Picture Word Books 1 (English–Spanish), designed to help children learn and explore new concepts in a fun, engaging, and accessible way. Junghwa also cherishes spending time with her amazing daughter and her funny, supportive husband, who bring so much joy into her life. As a family, they love camping and traveling together, exploring the world and creating lasting memories.


BIG HEARTS TEACHER

Laura Santy

  • Laura Santy is happy to be joining the wonderful team at The Village Children’s Center. She is currently studying child development at Long Beach City College and has four years of experience working with children of all ages, especially young children. She originally went to school for mathematics, but realized through her experiences with children that she has a passion for early childhood education. Her goal is to provide quality care and meaningful experiences for the children she works with. She hopes to create a safe environment for children to explore and learn. Laura looks forward to building new connections with the families and children at The Village Children’s Center.

    Laura’s favorite pastimes are all things artistic; she loves knitting, crocheting, painting, and spending time with her two rabbits. She enjoys doing art activities with children, particularly process art, and loves exploring different mediums with them. She also has an immense love for animals and has worked in an animal education program where she taught children and teenagers about the proper care and treatment of pets and urban wildlife. 

LITTLE HANDS TEACHER

Stephany Martin

  • 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.

LITTLE HANDS TEACHER

Alejandra Curiel

  • Alejandra Curiel, also known as Ms. Alex is very blessed and eager to join the wonderful team and work with the Village Children’s Center. She received her B.A. in Child Development at Cal State University of Long Beach and did two semesters of fieldwork with the infants and toddlers at the campus’ preschool. She has over four years of experience working with young children and has built on that passion over the years by working babysitting and nannying jobs. She also has experience in the classroom setting and teaching  children between the ages of 3 and 4 years old.  

    In her spare time, Alex Ioves working on crafts, such as painting and embroidering. She also spends a lot of her free time taking her two dogs out on adventures and spoiling them. She’s ecstatic to meet all the children and their families, and looks forward to a blessed and positive year full of learning, fun and adventures!

ON-CALL SUBSTITUTE TEACHER

Nilufahr Bahar

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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.com or follow on IG @ashleymillsmonaghan

Interested in leading with us?

Email TheVillage@rivieraumc.com for employment opportunities.