The Blue Igloo Playgroup
Washington, DC
A cooperative playgroup for children 6 months to 3 years old, meeting September through May in Washington, DC's Georgetown neighborhood.
Sabria has been with the Blue Igloo Playgroup "since the day it opened its doors." Sabria was born in Ourgla, Algeria to a diplomatic family. Sabria worked as a flight attendant where she met her wonderful husband Moncef.
In 1998,Sabria moved to Washington,D.C.to work as a certified nurse's aid and a nanny.In 2000,She co-founded Blue Igloo,and one year later began her role as director of the playgroup. Sabria's dynamism,enthusiasm,warmth and humor,not to mention her expertise in programming for young children ,are at the heart of the Blue Igloo experience.
In addition to her leadership at Blue Igloo, Sabria teaches French, designs and sews beautiful children's costumes, sings, and smiles all the time. She has a degree in childcare management. Sabria and her wonderful husband Moncef have a little girl named Shiraz. Sabria is privileged to have such an amazing kid and to be able to have her daughter attend Blue Igloo. In her spare time Sabria enjoys spending time with her lovely brothers and friends.
Luis is originally from Lima, Peru and has been living in Washington, D.C. since 1995. He moved here to pursue a music career and has found great success both domestically and abroad as the bassist for the band Nayas (which can be seen weekly at different venues around the city). He shared traditional Andean music with children, and thus began his life with little chairs and playdough.
A thousand spills and band-aids later, Luis became an assistant teacher at the Oneness School. From 2004 to 2006 he was their director of the aftercare program. Working at Blue Igloo has introduced Luis to many firsts: first smiles, first dance moves, first steps.
As a professional musician, Luis incorporates guitar into the daily routine of Blue Igloo. He introduces music, movement and rhythm to our little ones in their earliest stages. Luis loves observing the children absorbing the music and witnessing the beautiful everyday learning process and quick development of their very young minds. Coming home every day, he realizes how wonderful his job is and takes every moment as a personal experience for future parenting. Luis shares his life with his beautiful wife, Elizabeth, a talented professional photographer and native of California.
Bethany Corey is a local actress and teaching artist who has worked everyplace from The Kennedy Center to Imagination Stage to The Volkov Theatre in Yaroslavl, Russia. A graduate of American University with a dual BA in Music and Theatre for Children and Public Communications Bethany has been teaching since high school and performing since long before that! During the summer Bethany travels with US Performing Arts Camp acting as managing director and acting instructor at several sites across the US. During the year Bethany spends her days blowing bubbles, singing and dreaming up art projects for the children at Blue Igloo.
Bethany also serves as a substitute teacher for Gymboree Play and Music, Imagination Stage and is a core team member/teaching artist for Imagination Quest, a program which uses arts-based teaching to increase literacy in inner city schools through teacher trainings, parent workshops and in-school residences. In addition to teaching, Bethany loves to perform herself, having appeared in numerous plays and musicals-hopefully with more to come! Currently she is co-authoring a piece on International Theatre in Higher Education which she is thrilled to be presenting at the SVU 20th World Congress. Bethany loves teaching at Blue Igloo because it gives her the opportunity to spend her mornings with her shoes off painting, singing and playing among so many smiling faces!