Our Team

Our Team

At Little Elephant, we are extremely proud of our teaching team. All of our lead teachers have B.A. degrees and are Montessori trained, and collectively we have over 40 years of experience teaching and caring for children. Our passion for teaching children using the Montessori method is what drives us to work as hard as we do. But we also like to have fun and we really enjoy working together.

Rockridge

Maxine Kincora, Lead Teacher, Caterpillar Class

Maxine joined LEMS in 2008.

She received her BA at the California Institute for Integral Studies, her master’s degree in English from National University, and her Montessori teacher training from North American Montessori Center. She brings a passion for arts education to the children, and the rest of her life. She is deeply committed to positive discipline and non-violent communication. Maxine is an avid bird watcher, kayaker, rock climber, performer, artist and reader. She loves commuting to work on her sporty blue electric bicycle. She’s much older than anyone here and is way more wrinkled than they are.

Pooja Ramsinghani, Teacher

Pooja is the Caterpillar class support teacher

Jennifer Kottage Lund, Lead Teacher, Butterfly Class

Alejandra Maciel, Teacher

Alex is the Butterfly class support teacher

Stephanie Sanders, Afternoon Teacher

Stephanie has been a preschool teacher for over 20 years, working with ages 6 weeks to 7 years. She is also a mother, grandmother and huge dog lover. Stephanie loves working with children watching them explore, learning new things. And just listening to them talk about their  day brings her joy.  Besides working with kids she loves to cook, explore new recipes and baking up scrumptious desserts, spending time with family, traveling or just hanging out at the beach.  Stephanie also volunteers at Bay Area animal shelters mainly with Pitbulls, and spending time with her own dogs, Maxy a 4 year old yorkie and Kobe a 5 month old pitbull.  Children are a joy to be around and their little smiles make everything better.

 

Renee Lopez, Afternoon Teacher

Miss Renée has been doing assistant Montessori work for the past 8 years in Oregon and now California. Ms Renée enjoys doing photography and spending time with her 14 year old daughter who just moved to Oakland recently!

Berkeley 

Julie Larwood, Lead Teacher

Julie joined Little Elephant Too! when it first opened in January 2016 even though she had been teaching Montessori for many previous years.  She studied at San Francisco Montessori Training Center where she received her AMS certification. Julie also attended Contra Costa College, D.V.C and Merritt Colleges.  Julie is a California native,  who grew up in Orinda and now lives in Oakland near Lake Merritt with her husband.  She enjoys volunteering for the Oakland Museum, the Food Bank & Earth Day.

 

Jamilett Mendoza, Afternoon Teacher

Jamilett has three experience working in a Montessori classroom. She has her Early Childhood Development certificate and is continuing her education. Jamilett is obtaining her Montessori Assistant Teacher training through the Center for Guided Montessori Studies. She is very proud of receiving her EMS (Emergency Medical Service Certificate) as a Junior in high school. She loves coming to work work every day, to teach a child and have a child teach her.

Angelina Macias-Crouse, Afternoon Teacher

Angelina grew up in the east bay, mainly in El Cerrito and attended school in Berkeley. She has always loved being around kids babysat for a long time. A year ago she decided to pursue early childhood education, and started working as an assistant teacher at Little Elephant. She is currently in school taking early childhood education classes and concurrently working on her Montessori Assistant teacher training through Center for Guided Montessori Studies.

Natanya Moore, Director

Little Elephant is owned by Natanya Moore, who received her International Montessori teaching credential from the St. Nicholas Centre for the Montessori Method of Education in London in 1992. With 28 years experience teaching at the infant through kindergarten level, Natanya has trained Montessori instructors at the Santa Monica Montessori Teacher Training Institute, established new programs and served as a director in other schools. Natanya works daily to support Little Elephant’s core values of Kindness, Peace, Passion for Learning, Community Building and Creativity. She is also the mother of 15 year old, Duncan.