Bio

Ellen was born in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY to a family of musicians and educators. She spent a good amount of her childhood making music and dancing in the woods. Her family's creative playful approach to living inspired her to study early childhood education and to later become a Preschool and Kindergarten teacher at the Campus School of the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Her unusual approach of combining cognitive learning experiences with creative play caught the attention of several publishers and she became an educational consultant and author for Scholastic Publishing.At the same time, Ellen began teaching Early Childhood courses at the college and later became an Assoc. Professor of Early Childhood at SUNY Farmingdale, NY.

Ellen had the pleasure of working with Helen Benham and Jackie Carter in developing Early Childhood Today (formerly Pre-K Today) magazine for Scholastic. She wrote the Circle Time and Ages and Stages (5 year olds) columns for the magazine. If you go to scholastic.com and type in her name in the search bar...all of her years of articles are there for you to use.

Ellen is currently writing and consulting for a variety of publishers and schools around the world.  She is the Barnes & Noble Kids' Expert Circle and Environments, Inc.

Ellen has fallen in love with India and has been spending the last two years assisting with creating preschool programs for Kinderpillar. She goes every year to work with the teachers and families.

Ellen has a new book coming out in May 2014 for Gryphon House publishing. Getting to the Heart of Learning explores the concept that ALL learning is Social Emotional Learning. But how do we do that? The book if filled with activities and ideas you can use tomorrow in your classroom.