Abbie Quinn

I've been in my field for 9 years and have worked with children for approximately 26 years in all. I started off as an assistant teacher after graduating college and worked in public schools. I graduated with a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling, but after interning, I decided it wasn't so much what I wanted to do, so I leaned more toward Head Start and working with children. That experience working with children for so many years was the catalyst to me becoming a coach. In my current role as an educational coach for a Head Start Agency, which I've held for 6 years, my key responsibilities include engaging with teachers, instructing the teachers, meetings with the other coaches, and collaborating with other coaches and exchange of ideas. I conduct TLC meetings with the teachers that I work with, which gives them the opportunity to exchange ideas, share ideas, communicate, and collaborate with one another to see what areas in their classroom may work for the next teacher in another classroom. I'm also a recent author. I published a book called 'Transition Time, A Teaching Guide for Teachers,' which is available on Amazon. It was something that I basically did every day, and I just decided to put it in a book. The children have to have meaningful, educational transition chants or songs when they transition, and the teachers struggle with coming up with them. They have to be short, so I started coming up with them on my own and decided to put transitions in a book. It's combined with transitions, chants, songs, and also a combination of other ideas that I use in the classroom with the teachers that was also helpful, like self and parallel talk. I also wrote a book I just published called 'Princess Cache.' I came about this idea from working with children in the classroom and the teachers. I have to conduct observations, and during my observations, I would hear and listen to some of the little girls in dramatic play, and they would pretend to be princesses. All little girls have imagined being a princess at some time or another, so I wrote a book called 'Princess Cache,' which is also available on Amazon. I'm currently studying grant writing on my own and looking into grant writing so that I can help non-profit organizations.