Who is Emily Andrews?

I have worked in a variety of early childhood settings for almost two decades and have performed a variety of roles ranging from a preschool classroom teacher, a special ed teacher 1:1 teacher, a school learning specialist, a program director, and a staff development consultant.

I have unique program development experience – having helped launch both an afterschool program and an inclusive preschool for gifted children with special needs- and insights as to what skills a child may need to strengthen in order to thrive in a variety of educational settings. I am frequently referred to families by developmental pediatricians and nursery school directors. 

I received a Masters Degree in early childhood education, certified in both general education and special education, from Bank Street College of Education in 2007 and was selected for a federal fellowship to deepen my work supporting children on the autism spectrum. I am skilled in supporting all children’s learning and classroom readiness skills, including: attention, executive functioning, early writing skills, social cognition, and most importantly CONFIDENCE. I believe that all children acquire these skills most successfully when they are introduced through individualized play techniques that draw upon the child’s inherent interests and strengths. 

I am a NYS- certified teacher with CPR and First Aid. I have trained in the following programs: Tools of the Mind, Handwriting Without Tears, Collaborative Problem Solving, Sounds in Motion, Social Thinking, and others. More importantly, I have extensive early childhood classroom experience having worked within a variety of types of schools and am ready to meet your child where they are and continue to move them forward with their learning, social-emotional skills, and overall development. 

Why Here and Now Kids? 

Young Children live in the moment, and what a moment in time this is. Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the founder of New York’s Bank Street College of Education (my alma mater), was a distinguished theorist on progressive education. She wrote, among many other things, “The Here and Now Story Book” which examined what sort of language emerged from young children when they were encouraged to learn from their own thoughts and observations, as opposed to the norms of the time which largely included fairy tales. This idea of focusing on the present with children as well as her emphasis on early childhood education as a means of advancing democracy both seem to fit very much with the time we find ourselves in, here and now.