Our Story

Early childhood education has been my passion for as long as I can remember. It is a profession that I grew up immersed in. As the founder of China-based Maron International Education Group, my mother started her first childcare center in 1988 when I was just 3 years old. Within 6 months, the center became the most popular among local parents. My mother went on to pursue her dream of opening new centers in six other Chinese cities. Maron’s successful curriculum and great reputation continued to grow, and the group grew to 40 large centers all over China. To date, Maron has educated more than 30,000 children over the 30+ years since it began.

I was strongly influenced by my mother’s dedication to spreading education through this business. I came to the United States to attend High School in 2000 and graduated from the University of San Francisco with a Business Degree in 2008. From there, I began my own journey into early childhood education. Today, I and am proud and privileged to continue what my mother started.

We believe that quality education should never be limited by cultural, social, or economic boundaries. Knowledge Tree Children’s Academy is unique in many ways from typical centers. We offer extremely enriching and highly rewarding Inquiry-based Story Curriculum, a hands-on Project-based Multi-Cultural Kitchen, as well as a Children’s Art Studio. Many of our methods originated in China with a highly regarded and well-established Maron group. We’ve taken our very best lessons and modified them to fit into American Culture. We also offer Mandarin class at the academy, which is an incredible opportunity for children to explore a second language while still very young.

But perhaps most importantly, we strive to create a home-like environment where children can grow and explore their world. Our center is not a place only to learn ABCs and 123s, but one where children form good habits, satisfy and grow their natural curiosity, seek and find answers, solve problems, build relationships and become global citizens. We provide every opportunity for our students to be fully supported as they “write” their unique childhood stories and build foundations for lifelong learning.

Knowledge Tree Children’s Academy is a labor of love for my entire family. And we hope to have a positive impact on the lives of families and children at our academy.

Child Development Research

For 30 years, we’ve been dedicated to the research of features and stages of children’s development. We’ve partnered with early childhood education institutions in America, specializing in curriculum development. Through this research, we have developed a inquiry-based Story Curriculum and project-based Authentic Learning for our child care centers. Our curriculum supports children to develop social skills and problem solving skills through exploration and play.

Our Academy

Our Academy was specially designed to create a friendly home-like environment filled with educational purpose. To attain our goal of a high-quality early education center, we adapted our successful story-based curriculum as the core curriculum and integrated hand-on projects, diverse cultures and second languages into the program.

Inquiry-Based Story Curriculum

Our Inquiry-Based Story Curriculum is a distinct learning method that engages children with topics that they’re interested in and enthusiastic about. Reading interesting stories triggers a child’s curiosity to ask questions.

In order to find answers to these questions, children actively desire to read, to sense, to experience and to explore. They also spontaneously utilize their language, drawing, writing, body language and creativity to present their “project research results.”

In the meantime, children will be driven to new questions that they’re interested in, which leads to new projects of learning and exploration. Therefore, finding answers to questions is the process of self-challenging, self-accomplishing and learning for the children.

Experiential Learning

Children learn the best by doing. We have created a Children’s Multi-Cultural Kitchen and Art Studio for project-base learning, neither of which is found in any other learning center. Our children have the opportunity to make big art project in the artistic studio setting; also make and share real food in the special children’s kitchen.