Manuela SLYE
KCTS 2010 Exceptional Caregiver Award Winner

Manuela (owner and lead teacher at Cometa Playschool ) is a native Spanish speaker originally from Mexico. Not only is she fluent in Spanish, but she had also mastered English and French before finishing elementary school. She knows first hand that childhood is the best time to begin learning a second language. Manuela is raising her own three children in a Spanish/English bilingual home.

Her dedication to bilingualism does not stop with her own children. In recent years, Manuela has taken her "show on the road" playing her guitar and singing Spanish tunes to children all around the community. Places such as the YMCA, Childhaven's Therapeutic Program and Alki Elementary School. As her interest in childhood education grew, she decided to pursue formal training so that she could bring things under one roof--and the concept for Cometa Playschool was born.

Manuela has received her Early Childhood Education Training through the North Seattle Community College under the instruction of Tom Drummond. It was Tom who inspired Manuela to guide and support children's natural ability to learn and to make the best of the early childhood profession.

Manuela's belief that childhood should be a time of play and discovery is what shapes the environment at Cometa Playschool The curriculum encompasses all aspects of early childhood development: cognitive, physical, social and emotional, while giving children the opportunity to learn Spanish too.

Yohanna CASASUS
Yohanna Casasus.

Amaranta SANDYS
Amaranta is a graduate of the Fine Arts Institute in Mexico City. She has extensive experience working as an art teacher for the Seattle Public Schools and other local organizations such as La Casa de las Artes and has worked with other Hispanic artists to organize the Dia de los Muertos Festival at the Seattle Center. She's raising her son Lucas in a bilingual household.