I’m Miss Claire! This is my fourth year teaching preschool at Columbus Public Schools, and I love it! I attended the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Inclusive Education. I also worked part time as an assistant preschool teacher. That’s when I really fell in love with teaching preschool aged students. During college I met my husband, and now we’ve been married for 5 years. We have a 2 year old daughter, Avila.
My favorite part of my job is meeting all of my students and their families! I get to go on home visits before school starts in August, and I love meeting their family and getting to make those connections before the first day of school. My favorite part of the day is story time because I love books! Reading stories to kids brings me so much joy. Books are so engaging, and they can bring learning to life!
When I think about what students have learned so far this year, my students really enjoyed our Apples Study unit. This unit contains a lot of multi-sensory activities, such as apple tasting, balancing apples on our heads, painting with apples, and more! My favorite unit is the Garden Study that we do in the spring. It includes many interactive experiences like planting seeds, painting with vegetables, and even raising caterpillars (that we name of course)! It’s very interactive and loaded with many hands-on learning opportunities for my students.
My paras are Mrs. Graham and Ms. Sayli. It’s an understatement when I say they are amazing! Mrs. Graham’s favorite part of preschool is when she sees the excitement on a student's face when they learn something new. Ms. Sayli just started working here at the beginning of the year, but she has jumped right in and loves it! She says teaching children is all about love. I love working with preschoolers because they have so much energy and are so eager to learn. Their brains are ready to soak up everything. It’s amazing to watch them grow!