Isabel Spitalney, Lead Teacher

Isabel obtained her degree in Music, with a focus on Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) and has enjoyed bringing music into classrooms, music directing, performing in pit orchestras, and working to develop new theater work for children.

Isabel spent her childhood romping through creeks, painting with berries, creature-spotting, and joyously collecting earth’s many treasures (rocks, shells, feathers, seed pods, snakeskin, cicada exoskeletons…). Her first word was “buh” (bug), which appropriately set the stage for a lifelong love and appreciation for the natural world! Isabel feels strongly that all children benefit from being outside and cultivating close relationships with the nature. While learning in and from the natural world together, she hopes to foster in every child their already innate sense of wonder, belonging, and appreciation for the environment that they will be able to carry with them for the rest of their lives.

A musician and metalsmith, Isabel is passionate about the arts and integrating art and music into early education. Isabel obtained her degree in Music, with a focus on Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) and has enjoyed bringing music into classrooms, music directing, performing in pit orchestras, and working to develop new theater work for children. She’s primarily a guitar player (and former clarinetist), but has been known to whip out a mandolin, banjo, sitar, or melodica if the situation requires! Belief in the benefit of bringing as many things as possible outside (especially education and art making!) led Isabel to start a passion project, OutsideOutLoud, where she commissioned and produced various large-ensemble pieces of music and performed and recorded them outside in nature.

Since the start of the pandemic, Isabel has also delved deep into jewelry making/metalsmithing and has spent the last couple of years teaching jewelry making classes to children, apprenticing with a professional jeweler, and melting metal to create her own original nature-inspired jewelry.

Isabel has worked with children for many years, as a music teacher, art teacher, camp counselor, children’s theater maker, and babysitter. She is also a lifelong collector of children’s books and is excited to share her love of children’s literature through dramatic readings with her class! Isabel is constantly inspired by children’s curiosity, delight, and openness for the world, especially outside in nature. She strives to foster this natural sense of wonder in children through child-led inquiry and discovery, and she is thrilled to join BOPN outdoors for the 2023-2024 school year!

Outside of class, Isabel can be found making jewelry, songwriting, rollerblading through the arboretum, and snuggling up on the couch with a book and her little cat, Mona, curled up in her lap.