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About us: Himawari Preschool was started in the spring of 2004, by Mitsuyo and Ted Delphia. Both of them had met as teachers in Japan, and with 2 kids of their own they knew how hard it was to raise Japanese-speaking children in Michigan. Building on Mitsuyo's 12 years' experience teaching kindergarten both in Japan and in the US, and Ted's experience at running a startup company, they decided to create something unique in Michigan, if not in all the midwest: a preschool based on both US and Japanese models, using Japanese language immersion and cultural activities. Together with their good friend, Tomoko-sensei, they leased a site from the Livonia Public School system and created Himawari Preschool.
Enrollment has grown steadily and smoothly since our doors opened to the public at Roosevelt Elementary in the fall of 2004. We have expanded our classes, providing music/rhythmic activities, a "fun with English" program, and computer-based activities as well as the more traditional Japanese methods and content. We currently enjoy a very good reputation in the Japanese community in SE Michigan, and enroll children from as far as Ann Arbor and Rochester, MI. We also provide bus service to the Novi-West Bloomfield areas, and also use both of our buses extensively for special field trips.
Having outgrown our previous site at Roosevelt Elementary, we are now housed in the former McKinley Elementary building in south Livonia. Our goal is to encourage more American families to take this unique opportunity to give their preschool children a jumpstart into the global society of which SE Michigan is more and more part of. We encourage any families desiring a bilingual and bicultural education for their child to contact us with any questions they may have about us, Japan, or twow-way immersion bilingual education for young children..
All of our kindergarten teachers have had formal early childhood education studies and teaching experience in Japan. To best understand the principles and guidelines of public kindergarten education in Japan, as well as at Himawari Preschool, please read the following translation of the Kindergarten Education Guidelines from the Japanese Ministry of Education.
Mitsuyo-sensei graduated with a BS in childhood science from Osaka Women's University before becoming a kindergarten teacher in Shiga, Japan for 6 years. After meeting her future husband there, she moved to Michigan and married. Since then she has added the role of mother to her experience as a teacher, raising 2 bilingual chidren of her own. She was teaching Japanese kindergarteners and preschoolers here for 4 years before starting her own preschool in 2004.
Tomoko-sensei has taught kindergarten for many years both in Japan and in Michigan. She has taught at the Japanese School of Detroit since the beginning of their kindergarten program in 1998, and was the first head teacher there.
Mr. Ted was a secondary school math, computers, and English teacher at various schools in Michigan and Illinois for many years after graduating from the University of Michigan. However, it was his experience helping to start a business with his father and his time on the Japan Exchange Teacher programme that best prepared him for the adventure of starting a new Japanese school. Besides running the office and driving a school bus around town, he is spending his time expanding the role of Himawari Preschool in the Japanese community, and offer a chance for Michigan children really experience Japanese language and culture together with their Japanese friends.
