About PCA
All of the benefits of a Montessori education combined with language immersion and a staff that genuinely cares about each child.
What would you like to learn about?
from the founder
“I built the school I wish existed. I haven’t stopped building, and I don’t intend to.”
We believe that early childhood education is one of THE most important times in a person’s life. It shapes, not just the person, but creates ripples to everyone they encounter throughout their lives.
That’s why we focus all of our time and attention on the development of children into independent and empowered humans by creating an environment that prioritizes respect, consistency, and care.
we are here for the opportunity of a lifetime
Most early childhood education is little more than playtime that wastes the opportunity of a lifetime.
At PCA, we combine Montessori Education with language immersion to help children develop into empowered leaders.
“The Sensitive Periods”
“At such a time everything is easy; all is life and enthusiasm.”
– Maria Montessori
Through her years of study and observation, Maria Montessori discovered what she called “sensitive periods.”
Sensitive periods are developmental windows of opportunity during which the child can learn specific concepts more easily and naturally than at any other time in their lives. A child in the midst of a sensitive period will show an especially strong interest or inclination toward certain activities or lessons.
The Window of Opportunity
Chinese is unique with having four tones for each syllable with up to four meanings. Many adult learners struggle to master these tones as they would also for slight variations in musical sounds, but young children can easily absorb and learn the intonation and differences.
Starting your child early will help “train” their ears in order to build the foundation for future language and music development.
We firmly believe in effortless and fun bilingual education for children. Kids before the age of six are eager linguistic and musical geniuses and the sooner they start, the easier language and music learning will become. With our group of highly qualified native Mandarin Chinese educators with master’s degrees in education and a set of specially designed teaching curriculum using music and guided play, learning will be fun, dynamic and effective.
Language
Young children are in a critical period of spoken language development from birth to age six.
Most adult conversational language is in place by the age of six. Children naturally strive to learn language in their own environment during this critical development stage. Exposure to sounds and tones in a second language and music benefit children immensely in brain development, and also sets the stage for future learning opportunities.
Music
At Philadelphia Chinese Academy, music is a key part of our curriculum.
Around age three, children experience a sensitive period for learning rhythm, pitch, melody, and more. This is the best time to introduce music to your child. Music develops the brain, leading to academic, social, and emotional growth.
Meet PCA
Meet our team who make our school so magical.
Grace Chang
Early Childhood Lead
Marj Horton
Education Coordinator
Ann Liang
Toddler Assistant
Lynn (Jinglin) Peng
Early Childhood Assistant
Rosie (Sirou) Wang
Early Childhood Assistant
Cathy Waurick
Early Childhood English Language Lead
Yasmin Yao
Early Childhood and Chinese Language Lead
Dale You
Founder
Pearl Zhao
Toddler Lead
Jenny Zhou
Early Childhood Lead
Sicong Zhou
Toddler Assistant
early childhood education is one of the most important times in a persons life, shaping not just the person, but creating ripples to everyone they encounter throughout their lives
Just A Little More About Us
Our caring native speaking staff with advance degrees in education and music focused on early childhood development will provide an immersive learning environment for your child. Children’s development and emotions are influenced by daily interactions with caring adults.
We believe that every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times.
Children in our School have freedom within limits to explore the environment as well as repeat their work freely based on their choice within a highly protected 3-hour work cycle each and everyday. We believe that through repetition based on personal choice, a child learns to master skills which build the foundations for a lifetime of learning.
We use the Montessori toddler and early childhood curriculum taught by properly credentialed teachers in multi-aged classrooms. Our environment provides for child-directed work with daily uninterrupted full work cycles. Our classroom is filled with authentic Montessori materials suggested by the American Montessori Society. Each classroom has a teacher who plays a musical instrument in order to provide daily musical interactions. We deeply respect Maria Montessori’s sensitive periods for children which is why music learning and language acquisition is at the heart of our programs.
True to the Montessori philosophy, our classroom consists of children of mixed ages where older children can model for younger children and the younger children learn from the older children. We are thrilled to be an American Montessori Society pathway school. We strive to the very best school we can be for our families.