I’m Emily, your virtual mom friend who knows first hand the messiness of motherhood. I help moms get quick wins by sharing easy ways to combine learning and play. I love talking with you about crafts, baking, education, and celebrations (big and small).

In 2016, I decided to leave my teaching job for a few reasons:

Reason number one – I wanted to spend more time with my daughter

Reason number two – I was pregnant with my son

Reason number three – The cost of a trustworthy daycare for two kiddos was almost my entire paycheck

Staying home was both an emotional and financial decision for my family.

That was June 2016; now fast forward a few months later to December and the vast majority of my mom friends are sharing information about preschool registration for their 2 year olds (my daughter’s age at the time). First, I looked around for Ashton because I must have been on PUNK’D. I mean, I had just joined an AWESOME mom group and now they are all going to send their kids away to preschool! Weren’t we supposed to be stay-at-home moms together? When I realized that Ashton was nowhere to be found I sheepishly admitted we were not sending our little girl to school just yet. Preschool is just so expensive! I was beginning to feel guilty though… I mean, I am a teacher and I’m passionate about education. As it turned out, two other moms felt the same way and we talked about teaching our kiddos at home. I suggested that I write a curriculum and lesson plan for our kids (cause you know the whole teacher thing) so we wouldn’t have to pay the astronomical prices of a brick and mortar preschool.

That night I shared the idea with Eric and he mentioned that there are likely thousands of families out there in the same predicament. Thousands of families that have decided not to send their little ones to preschool for whatever reason, but they still want their kiddo to be prepared for school when the time comes. So just like that, Sandbox Academy was born!

This little passion project has become my thing. You know how as a stay-at-home mom you can sometimes loose yourself in the midst of laundry, pay dates, and cooking dinner, that was me. And this has become thing that lets me both contribute to my family financially and remember who Emily is outside of being a mom and a wife. I genuinely look forward to chatting with you and creating for you.