Teacher Ayumi moved to Kirkland with her family from Osaka, Japan in 2017. One of her three children attended Kirkland Preschool and during that time she felt all the wonderful things about the community here, the parent network and the love from the teachers.

Ayumi attended National Wakayama University for Education. During university, Ayumi focused on camp leadership, camp management, and skiing. Upon graduation, she was a licensed Japanese teacher and then worked as an elementary school teacher in Osaka for seven years. She mainly taught first and second grade classes, as well as special needs classes. Her focus was teaching language development and Japanese language writing/reading skills.

Since coming to the U.S., she has continued teaching at a Saturday Japanese language school and teaches Japanese language and culture classes at an elementary school enrichment class. Together with Teacher Christy, she teaches Treasure Box Book Club on Mondays. She enjoys helping the children understand what they are learning throughout the day.

Since she was 14, Ayumi has enjoyed performing tea ceremonies. She loves matcha green tea and Japanese sweets and finds it relaxing to talk with friends in a calm and cozy tea party. Cooking Japanese meals and doing ribbon crafts are some of her other hobbies.

Ayumi lives with her three children and her husband. She speak Japanese at home and her children have grown up bilingual.