Natasha Samji has over 10 years of child care experience working with various age groups and kids with different learning styles. As the head teacher (and newly promoted principal) of 2000 Days Pre-Kindergarten, Natasha has gone above and beyond to include educational child care practices in students' day-to-day activities. Her first few years of child care work involved teaching a 9 year old child with special needs. She recognized that the child had unique needs and catered her teaching style to ensure that the child was able to learn new concepts quickly, easily, and efficiently. Not only did Natasha use her practical experience, but she frequently drew on her theoretical knowledge that she developed from her studies at Bow Valley College and Mount Royal University. At 2000 Days, Natasha continues to implement various strategies that she has developed from her earlier role as a full-time teacher in the classroom. For example, as a practicum student at Heartland Agency she learned effective calming strategies for behavior management. These strategies included breathing and meditation and proved to be effective on numerous occasions. As a head teacher at 2000 Days, she encourages and instructs fellow teachers to use natural techniques such as this in the classroom. As a principal she is always striving to ensure that her teachers have the best and most up-to-date resources to enhance the student’s education. For example, she provided all staff with a copy of "Meeting the Challenges", an instructive book that gives educators the tools they need to teach in a classroom with behavioral difficulties. On top of providing excellent resources for her staff, Natasha also implements a variety of evaluative measures like Nipissing and creating progress reports that meet the needs of all students. Although Natasha is born and raised in Canada, she is East Indian and her parents are from East Africa. This has allowed Natasha to expose her students to a wide variety of cultures first hand. Natasha recognizes that kids are able to learn new languages very easily within the first 2000 days of their life. She takes regular opportunity to teach kids new languages by incorporating new languages and music at the same time. For example, on regular occasions she has taken the opportunity to teach the kids how to sing "Head and Shoulders" in Katchi (a dialect from the Gujrat region in India). She has also brought in her mother to teach kids about Tanzania and various other countries in east Africa. She has also taught students about Navroz (New Year’s based on the Muslim calendar) and included kids in various cultural activities such as henna (a cosmetic art usually performed by people in Egypt, India, and Europe). Natasha is always excited about incorporating other cultures, helping to create language reference charts, creating displays for International Festivals Week, introducing Before and After School care students to cultural books that educate them about their own culture, and helping each student prepare a multicultural presentation to share with the younger students. She is also in charge of recruiting parents to come in to 2000 Days and teaches students about their language and culture.