Mrs. Hardt — Turtles (3/4)

Hello Parkview Friends!  My name is Amanda Eberhardt and I am known at Parkview as “Mrs. Hardt” or “Leo’s Mommy.” I started my journey with Parkview as the Caterpillar teacher during the 2020-2021 school year and am so excited to now be the Turtle teacher. I was able to spend time as a co-op parent in Miss Holly’s room with my son Leo and we had such a fun year with our Froggy friends. Now I get to be the teacher for Leo and his friends old and new!

I grew up in a small town in north central Indiana and graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Natural Resources and Wildlife Management. I was a zookeeper at the Indianapolis Zoo for five years where my passion for education started. I also volunteered for a non-profit that brought rescued wildlife to libraries and schools to teach about conservation. I went back to school to get my teaching license and then taught in IPS for
5 years (mostly in kindergarten). After my son was born in 2019,
I decided to spend more of my time in these early years with him and Parkview has provided such great opportunities for me to do that.

I’ve lived in Broad Ripple since moving to Indy in 2006. Our family shares our house with two dogs named Sierra and Danny Boy, one cat named Ozzie, and two turtles named Crush and Ted. All of our furry (and scaled) family members are rescues and my dream is to have an animal sanctuary one day! We love the neighborhood and especially enjoy hiking and playing at Holliday and Broad Ripple Park, eating at the Pawn Shop Pub or Luciana’s, and giving the canal ducks “duck corn” from Good Earth. In my spare time I like to go to concerts, go camping, travel to visit friends, and volunteer for a therapeutic riding program called Equiventure.

My favorite part of play-based learning is setting up the environment and then seeing what journey these little minds take us on. 
I absolutely love the Parkview community and am so happy to be involved with such a great school!