Our Preschool and Daycare Staff
Preschool Director and Owner: Natalie Gerity
Natalie is a Phoenix, Arizona native! Natalie is the licensed Director of our trilingual language immersion preschool and daycare program. She manages the business and serves as the primary contact for all of our parents. She also coordinates the Mandarin Chinese and Spanish curricula with English-based learning models, and ensures that both the preschool and the daycare present a clean and safe learning environment for your precious kids.
Natalie attended Xavier College Preparatory and went to Fordham University in New York City, where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. Afterwards, Natalie continued her education at Long Technical School, nka Kaplan College, and achieved a Paralegal Certificate. Natalie worked in the legal field for over 15 years, but she is now following her passion in pre K education. Before she opened Hola Hello Ni Hao Language Preschool, she regularly volunteered her time with the Chinese and Spanish immersion preschools and schools that her children were attending. In fact, Natalie has been the President of the PTO board for each school her children attended, including the trilingual immersion charter school, Arizona Language Preparatory (which now sits next door to our preschool and daycare). In 2014, Natalie created the Mini-Ambassador Student Exchange Program from the ground up with the assistance of Phoenix Sister Cities. This program offers language-learning students the opportunity to travel to China, Mexico and other countries, go to local schools, and be paired up with a local Chinese or Spanish speaking host family and child. Before she created this program, these kinds of opportunities were only available to high school students. Since she created the program, she has expanded it to include the Sister Cities programs of both Scottsdale and Tempe.
Natalie takes great pleasure in creating fun, innovative and exciting events for children to enjoy. Natalie has a passion for travel and loves introducing children to other countries and elevating children to succeed further with the ultimate goal of language fluency. She is frequently invited by local governments in China and Mexico to participate in activities such as anniversary celebrations and friendly competitions. Natalie will use her Bachelor’s Degree to enhance your child’s trilingual language learning experience with art and literature in English.
Mandarin Language Teacher and Owner: Fei Yao “Fancy”
Ms. Fancy is the primary Mandarin Chinese language immersion teacher as well as an owner of our preschool and daycare program. She manages the Chinese immersion portion of our curriculum, and serves as the primary contact for our Mandarin-speaking parents. She also coordinates the Mandarin Chinese curriculum with the Spanish curriculum, and ensures that both the preschool and the daycare present a strong learning environment for your precious kids to learn new languages.
Anyone who knows Ms. Fancy knows that she is the best at early childcare and pre K for Mandarin. Fancy hails from Zhenjiang, China. In 2016, Fancy helped to launch the Mini-Ambassador Student Exchange Program with the Tempe Sister City of Zhenjiang, China (her home town!). Fancy graduated from the prestigious Jiangsu University in 2008 with a major in Art and Design. Fancy has taught preschool-aged children in the United States since 2012, working a various preschools and daycares in the Scottsdale and Phoenix areas. Teaching Mandarin as a second language has encompassed her entire teaching career. She is currently enrolled in school learning the Montessori way of teaching. Soon, Fancy will be a certified Montessori teacher, and will implement that program in your child’s classrooms in the near future.
Fancy loves children and has a passion for creating relationships between China and the United States. Her goal is to enhance your child’s language and cultural education through a pairing with a Chinese brother or sister in friendship, to further enable their education by immersing children into the world of language and communication. Pre K Children have the natural ability to absorb language and in turn, learn coexistence and community with the world. Learning a different language, other than one’s native tongue, encourages creative and universal thinking and broadens the child’s future with all the advantages that multilingual proficiency provides. Fancy is in charge of the creation of your child’s unique curriculum. Hola Hello Ni Hao’s preschool and daycare language curriculum will guide your child within an environment where language, respect, dignity and coexistence with all cultures is taught by immersing your child into languages.
Spanish Preschool Teacher: Delia Curiel-Ontiveros
Like all of our Spanish and Chinese language immersion preschool teachers, Ms. Delia is a native speaker, having been born and raised in Sinaloa, Mexico. She LOVES teaching pre-K children to read, write and speak Spanish, and has been the principal Spanish language teacher at our preschool and daycare since 2021. Ms. Delia has 5 children of her own and a heart of gold. In her spare time, she loves to dance and cook, but her favorite thing to do is travel. Ms. Delia is looking forward to continuing her education in early childhood development and working for Hola Hello Ni Hao Language Preschool.