Emilie Colas grew up in Lyon, France and studied at Lyon University Claude Bernard. She received her Master’s Degree in speech and language therapy. She has experience in early childhood education, as she worked in a preschool for her graduate internship. She began to practice speech therapy in Paris, both with families and with educational teams from the surrounding elementary schools. In addition, she spent two years working in a pediatric hospital, where she was responsible for a small group of children with special needs. Last September, she relocated to New York City with her husband, a PhD candidate at Columbia University.

Emilie enjoys teaching and interacting with young children. In her work as a pediatric speech therapist, she mainly focused on children ages 4 to 8 years. Also, her graduate studies included courses on child development, child psychology, and child neurology. Bilingualism and multiculturalism are a main part of her background. Emilie published an article about these topics on New York in French website. 

Emilie’s favorite hobbies include reading and she describes herself as an avid reader. In addition, she is also practices her own art through drawing and painting. She enjoys being in the nature and often goes hiking and diving.

Before growing a merry mustache at La Petite Ecole, Sophie was a teacher at Buckle My Shoe, a downtown nursery school where she taught French and art to babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

Sophie hails from the southwest of France and grew up in Bordeaux. She studied English at the Sorbonne in Paris. As a radio reporter and a journalist, Sophie held several radio shows on the French national radio France Inter, and worked for ten years at the cultural desk of the daily Liberation until she met her husband, an American photographer.

She came to New York and started a new career as a teacher.  Raising a bilingual daughter had been her first rewarding teaching experience, and sharing her energetic passion for the French language with other young children felt like a natural calling. Sophie is now convinced that there is no occupation more uplifting and more inspiring than working in the company of young children.   

Sophie enjoys small museums, the music of words, unknown landscapes, color, and fantastic found objects. She has three Russian Blue cats and very green thumbs. As a gardener fond of the Reggio Emilia philosophy, Sophie wants to excite children's natural curiosity and imagination, and encourage them to plant the seeds of their own jardin with lots of silly songs and dances, and plenty of beautiful recycled art. 

Clara Warnaar

Musician in residence

Hailing from a family of French-speakers and artists, Clara felt immediately drawn to La Petite École as the perfect place to teach.

 With a Québecoise mother, and film musician father, Clara attended Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles from an early age and then moved on to the Interlochen Arts Academy to pursue her studies in classical percussion. Since then, she has studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Banff Centre. In recent years as a private teacher and for the Harmony Project, she has discovered a great joy in sharing music with children of all ages. At La Petite École, she encourages the curiosity of young children to explore sound by learning the art of listening. Activities include making instruments, creating sound effects for cartoons and using the accordion to sing and teach French songs.

 An advocate of contemporary music, Clara has premiered dozens of works in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. She has performed in orchestral, chamber, solo and world genres, and is a composer as well. She is a member of the Ensemble Mise-en and the Moveable Feast Orchestra.