About Us
Get to know Emily and her approach.
About Emily
Emily Snowden is the owner and primary swim instructor at Snowden Swim School LLC.
Over the last 15+ years, she has worked directly with young children in many capacities, including preschool teacher, au pair, nanny, tutor, and babysitter. Emily also taught at the college level, preparing pre-service teachers for the classroom. After 15+ years of work with young children, Emily completed her PhD in Early Childhood Education at Florida State.
“I’m proud of my work, but my biggest qualifier for this role (or any role in early care and education) is that I was once a scared child in the water who struggled to learn to swim”
Emily first taught swim lessons as a teenage lifeguard. However, in 2010 she was trained to teach using the “swim-float-swim” approach, which emphasizes floating and rolling as primary safety skills in the water.
Throughout her pursuits in higher education, she has continually returned to this space that has so often felt so healing—helping children build a positive but informed relationship with the water through play.
Emily’s Approach
Emily’s overall goal is to help your child develop the safety skills and swimming behaviors that they need to make decisions and move themselves efficiently through the water.
Because Emily uses a whole child approach in all her early care and education endeavors, the swim process begins with developing individualized swim plans. This includes information about your child’s emotional relationship and history with the water and swimming.
In each scheduled swim session, Emily then works with each child on their swimming goals and needs through intentional play. This typically involves a series of 5 to 10 minute games that include toys, songs, and/or back-and-forth conversations.