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This is the third of a series of three blog posts, looking at the main principles of the most well known child-led educational philosophies today. You can read the post on Montessori here, and on Steiner/Waldorf here. Today, the Reggio Emilia approach... In my opinion, I have saved the best for last, as this is the philosophy that resonates most closely with our family values, although there are aspects of Montessori and Steiner/Waldorf that I love and respect very much too. There are, in fact
A teaching approach meant to perk up the children of war is popular at a handful of posh American schools. But wouldn't it make more sense to use it with underprivileged kids?
We show children where to look but not what to see…This simple phrase has become part of our philosophy, which feeds into our approach and is who we are today as a setting. Our approach was originally inspired by the Reggio Approach, but we have developed and fine-tuned it over the years and we fully expect to continue enhancing and adapting, because no matter how good you think you are, you can always be better. At the end of the day we are providing care and education for children in their early years – their most crucial years, so we should all be striving to provide the best.
When I think of “authentic learning” I am reminded of my own journey to create a curious, safe, warm and inviting environment in my classroom. Inspired by my fellow group members Maggie…
The construction of chandeliers is a regular center in the Reggio Inspired classrooms. The chandelier hangs in the room once it is complete. Two teachers I work with, Ms. Schouten and Ms. Winters, have some amazing chandeliers their children have constructed. This is a chandelier center in progress. The base of the chandelier typically hangs […]
Explore the new Atelier of Light, a Reggio Emilia-inspired interactive learning space in Pittsburgh until November 15.
Último día del curso LA ÉTICA Y LA ESTÉTICA EN LAS ESCUELAS DE REGGIO EMILIA Considero esencial este tipo de formaciones donde sales un poco de tu burbuja para explorar otras realidades, para escuchar diversas opiniones, otras maneras de hacer y de entender nuestra profesión y, más allá aún, el concepto mismo de infancia. Aún así, el debate realmente extenso y constructivo se ha producido en las charlas entre las compañeras de la escuela que hemos asistido al curso. En esta última sesión pudimos conocer la experiencia de dos invitadas del formador, Ari y Marina, de ellas aprendí mucho sobre los tipos de atelier. He intentado poner imágenes a las palabras, a partir de mis apuntes, mi interpretación personal y lo que he sabido encontrar (imágenes de Pinterest). TIPOS DE ATELIER: Atelier gráfico y pictórico Cuidar la presentación de los materiales. Colores, ceras, folios y demás elementos distribuidos por cromatismos, teniendo en cuenta el sentido estético, la consonancia en los espacios. Objetos decorativos que siguen la tendencia cromática. Atelier de la luz La mesa de luz ofrece un sinfín de posibilidades. Materiales de nuestro entorno que proporcionen juegos de luz, texturas, efectos visuales, etc. Desde elementos de la naturaleza, envases, papeles, tierra, pintura... Atelier de constructividad Construir a partir de lo que nos proporciona la naturaleza y materiales de nuestro entorno más próximo: maderas, figuritas de animales u otras, materiales reciclados, etc. Atelier del barro Muy interesante el uso del barro como alternativa a la plastilina. El barro es frío, se transforma, se seca, es húmedo y es de un color neutro que no quita protagonismo al niño. Atelier natural Para apreciar, descubrir, experimentar cómo la materia se transforma. Podemos ofrecer piedras, troncos, etc. Permiten realizar construcciones, manipulaciones. Atelier de narración y movimiento A partir de proyecciones en la pared, en el suelo, en el techo. Son imágenes sugerentes, muy relacionadas con la naturaleza o el ser humano. Imágenes artísticas, delicadas. Proyección de vídeos que invitan a la interacción y el movimiento. LA MATERIA Ari y Marina nos explican su experiencia en la Fundación Tàpies para acercarse al concepto de materia. - Concepto de transformación - Escucha de la identidad de la materia Comparto con ellas la necesidad de desterrar de nuestra mente la necesidad de "hacer", para evitar el "hacer por hacer" sin un sentido, una reflexión previa. Pero también para escapar de la creencia de que necesitamos hacer cosas, producir, cuando lo que pretendemos es aprender de nuestras vivencias. Remida A grandes rasgos, este proyecto se basa en la idea de que los residuos son recursos, la utilización de materiales alternativos y reinventar el uso y el significado de materiales desechados. Es, a demás, una filosofía ecológica, ética, educativa, estética y económica. Íntimamente vinculado al proyecto de Reggio Emilia. Para saber más AQUÍ En Barcelona existe una iniciativa muy similar, se trata de Re-crea en Rosa Sensat (Barcelona) y El carrau blau en Sant Just Desvern. Son espacios de recogida y almacenamiento de materiales provenientes de stocks de empresas, donaciones particulares, excesos de producción, etc. Ordenados con intención estética por voluntarios y que pueden ser demandados por escuelas y otras entidades que expongan un proyecto y una finalidad para los materiales solicitados. Advertencia: Hay formaciones que pueden llegar a ser un punto de inflexión en nuestro modo de ver ciertos temas, luego puede no haber vuelta atrás.
Since the middle of February while were creating our dragon project, I started to notice something. The kids were taking the logs out of our building area and creating "bands" with them as drum sets. Kids were making shaker's at the maker's space, two friends brought three sizes of clay to me and wanted to show the class how when they thumped them each size made a different sound. Another friend took a plastic bottle wrapper off the bottle and pulled on both ends sharply and showing us the snapping sound it made. I was hoping to avoid it this year, but somehow, every year, kids start exploring sound! So....guess what our next large scale inquiry is: Sound! I set out some areas for them to explore first. Then we will let them wonder. I set out glasses for them to compose their own music and perform for the class. I had planned on it being an exploration of pitch, but they noticed something else instead. At first the compositions were very random, then one friend colored an AB pattern and played it. It sparked a discussion on how there could be patterns in sound and also defined "rhythm" as their patterns became more complex. After they were done with this area, I set out these materials to see what they noticed about sound. We discovered that the more water that was in the bowls, the lower the pitch and the less water the higher the pitch! For our Engineers, I put out materials for them to create instruments and show what you have to do to get it it to produce sound. They created instruments that produced sound through shaking, striking, rubbing and strumming. For our artists, I set out pictures of instruments for them to look closer and then draw its outline with a sharpie and creatively paint it with watercolors. We also looked at Picasso's Blue Guitar painting, then hung it at our easel to inspire artists to create their own. As they explored, two main things came up in our wonders which became our driving questions. How is sound made? When does sound become music? We learned that sound is caused by vibrations and that the sound waves travel through the air to our ears. But something had to happen to make the vibrations start? The kids through exploring came to the conclusion that sound is made by striking, shaking, blowing, rubbing, strumming and plucking. We made instruments to model the different ways to make sound. To show that sound can be made by shaking, we made maracas. To explore the concept of pitch, we provided different fillings for maracas: Sand (not pictured), rice and two different sizes of beans, then we compared them. We also used these as guiros to show show that sound can be made by rubbing. They just ran a craft stick over the ridges of the bottle. To show that sound can be made by blowing, we made harmonicas! The first time we tried them they didn't work. I realized that we needed thicker rubber bands to create the sound. They could tell the rubber bands were vibrating as they produced sound. They were very loud! The kids loved them! To show that sound can be made by strumming or plucking, we made cup guitars! They have a great rich sound when you put them by your ear and pluck them as the sound is amplified by the cup! We used three different sized rubber bands to create different pitches. The kids could really see the vibrations with these. They could also feel the vibrations on their hands. To show that sound can be made by banging, we made drums! To organize our data, we created a web map showing the different ways to make sound and the instruments that are used for each one. To explore when sound becomes music, I showed them videos of a group called STOMP. They use random objects to create different rhythms with different pitches. Look them up on YouTube! They are amazing and the kids loved watching them. They were inspired and created their own STOMP inspired groups using random objects we could find in our room and our closet! You can see some videos of these on my Instagram account at darlamyersclass. Through STOMP we realized that when sound has a pattern it gives it rhythm, and when sound has different pitches added to the rhythm it creates music! After all of our exploring and investigating, we wrote informational books about sound to show what they learned. The kids really loved exploring the science of sound! Another thing going on in our room is a Mo Willems author study. These little friends have been in our reading area all year long. The kids didn't think they were really anything special until... we read one of his Elephant and Piggy books. The kids have really enjoyed listening to and reading his Elephant and Piggy books. They have been very inspired by him in Writer's Workshop and many Elephant and Piggy stories have been written by them. They decided that they wanted to turn our dramatic play area into an Elephant and Piggy Workshop where they could read and write stories about them! Now these stuffed animals are extra special to them! Here is our finished area! They made a sign: This area has been very popular! A lot of reading and writing skills are being practiced here! I am sure as we read his pigeon and Knuffle Bunny books, they will be inspired to write stories about them in this area also! We brought out our collaborative canvas again! It just didn't seem finished yet! I poured some paint on it and the kids used large craft sticks to scrape the paint across the canvas. They loved this process! I think next we will start adding some texture and three dimensional aspects to it! Here is a clue as to what we are going to discover next! It fits in this box!
Rose Parks Preschool, a Reggio Inspired school, had so many hanging art pieces. I am sharing a few of these amazing collaborative art pieces. The strands of assorted beads, ribbons, and other objects that the children created. These were all hung from a tree branch. Beautiful! I love full branches like this one. The children's self-portraits twirl from the limbs with their photo. The teacher in this classroom told me the best story about this chandelier. On an afternoon walk, the class found this discarded chandelier in a neighbor's trash. The children strung the beads on wire (or pipecleaners) and all of these were attached to the chandelier. Love it! I am not sure what is hanging (it kinda looks like a metal wine rack). There are bowls of beads and a basket of black feathers for the children to create hanging strings. So fun! Get this! These are bracelets from the Dollar Store that are hanging from an old bike tire. This is so cool. A grapevine wreath with strands of beads hanging from it that the children had made. A string of lights hanging from a disc. You could use a large embroidery hoop. This is a stick chandelier. If you look closely you can see that the stick were wrapped together to form this cube like shape. The children made the strands from pipecleaners, beads and feathers. This is so beautiful and so simple. The children's self portraits hanging from a tree branch. A large embroidery hoop with all kinds of string, yarn and ribbon hanging from it. It is amazing. Every family made a strand on this piece that represented their values and traditions. I love this! I have my last installment of Rosa Parks photos tomorrow! Hugs!
Sensory rugs are so great for children’s learning and very beneficial for their development. Children are usually very attracted to sensory rugs that stimulate their senses with different textures and colors. The great news is
Here we take a look at why Reggio Emilia education works and show you how it works in real life.
When it comes to material introduction, we tend to forget the explore stage. Click to explore the magic and wonder of the explore stage when using clay.
Our school has an Outdoor Learning Committee that I am a part of. We all feel very strongly that the environment where the children play outside is just as important as the environment inside our school. We have worked hard to make our playground an area where the kids can run, exercise explore and yes...learn! Outside play plays an important role in children's development! They are working gross motor muscles and getting must needed exercise. They learn how to solve problems such as when social disagreements arise. They learn empathy as they help friends who get hurt. They learn to take risks and see where their limits are and feel empowered as they take those risks and succeed. They create games and role play. They learn science concepts as they discover things in nature and learn to look closer and ask questions about what they see as they discover new things. They learn kindness as they try to save an insect in danger or nurture a plant. They are literally learning about life and life skills as they play outside, so we knew the environment needed to support that. We had an area that we were having some problems with in the middle of our asphalt area. We wanted to turn it into something all of the kids could explore and benefit from and decided to create a Barefoot Sensory Path. We came up with a design and my husband figured out how to make it so that it would be sturdy and last. Our amazing PTO gave us funds to purchase the materials and we had fun shopping at Lowes for items that would provide the sensory experiences we were hoping for. Our team came in on a Saturday and went to work. Our maintenance team had dug the area down four inches so that it would be even with the asphalt. We put down a layer of paver sand, and then the 4x4's. We glued some materials to 2x2 pieces of plywood. The sections were all 2x2. We filled the sections with paver base and tamped it solid. My son even came and helped! Here is the finished frame. Of course, we had to test it out! Here is the finished path!! We were so excited for the kids to try it! It was a huge success!! The kids absolutely loved walking on it with bare feet, crawling on it and feeling with their hands and even laying in it enjoying the warmth radiating from it from being in the sun. Another new area we created was an area to create roads, ramps, etc. using scrap wood, cars, signs and other loose parts. This lovely lady below had the vision for this area! We also added an area to really work those gross motor muscles. Mr. Doyle created a boundary to keep it all contained to one area. We filled it with stumps, logs, and large branches. The kids have created obstacle courses and love lifting these up to show how strong they are! They jump, balance and create here. They collaborate and problem solve. They use both critical and creative thinking skills. This is a great area to develop 21st Century Learning Skills as they play! For our nature lovers, we have an area with plants for them to explore and observe. Some are edible such as peppermint and fennel. We have cone flowers, milkweed, irises, sunflowers and more. This area is a great place to explore and observe insects also! Here are some other things on our playground where they can let lose and have fun! Our playground is still a work in progress! We have many more ideas that we want to implement some day! One step at a time!
Montessori vs Reggio: Key Similarities and Differences You may be faced with making the decision for your child...education philosophies...
Are looking for a fun, low-prep, and inexpensive DIY puzzle to try with those beautiful stones you've been collecting? Try this simple stone matching game
How to teach baby sign language, and when to teach it! This guide has everything you need to know about baby and toddler sign language.
I feel like all I've been doing this year is writing about boxes. These are the top and bottom of a long box that came along with our giant tube (which I've still not had the courage to cut up into shorter pieces). Watching children play with boxes makes me want to write a poem about them. Or sing a song. These they seem to like to hide under, together, making it feel for a few seconds as if there are fewer children at school today. Then suddenly they burst back out into the light, bringing with them all the sound and motion that we expect at Woodland Park. I wish I had a huge warehouse for storing these kinds of thing, but instead we need to use them up, wear them out, then either get them into the recycling bin or cut them up for art projects, like this incredible glue collage on which we've been working off and on for a couple weeks. A project built on a remnant of the last box we loved until it was no more. A collage made of the parts of other things we've used up, but not found the heart to throw out. And then when we're finished gluing, once it's all dry, then maybe we'll throw it out. If history is to be a guide, it will take a long time before that happens. I might even go over it a few weeks from now and pick it like carrion for parts to re-use yet one more time. In fact, I'm pretty sure much of it will soon be stuck to the side of our new long boxes. But not before we've loved them to pieces.
What is Inquiry Based Leaning in Kindergarten? In simple form, inquiry-based learning is more of a student-directed way of learning rather than teacher-directed. In some cases, the teaching team may set the general framework for learning, but for the most part, the learning is based on the students questions, ideas and passions. This is similar to the emergent curriculum if that is a term you are more familiar with. Rather than working off set lesson plans that are theme-based and not necessarily developmentally appropriate for all children, your teaching is guided by the students interests thus making the learning more meaningful to them. We know from research that children achieve optimal learning when they are given plenty of opportunities to become fully engaged in their play. Most often while children are engaged, their natural curiosity of the world around them comes forth. They take notice of everything and have a beautiful sense of wonder about people, places, objects, and nature. Through noticing and wondering, the children come up with questions and observations about their thinking. It is important that children are given the opportunity to investigate their inquiry, gather information, make observations and share their findings with others. It is the role of the teaching team in kindergarten to act as facilitators. We use these opportunities of inquiry to help guide the children with more open-ended questions allowing them to extend and clarify their thinking and make connections, while modeling the inquiry process. We provide the children with the tools, materials and resources they need to investigate these inquiries. What is the Inquiry Process? The Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program clearly defines the inquiry process in the curriculum document and I have included the table for you below: There is also an article I enjoyed named "The Plan: Building on Children's Interests" by Hilary Jo Seitz through NAEYC, that you can read here, that offers a very interesting perspective on the inquiry process. It has many similarities to the one in the Full Day Kindergarten document, but I enjoyed the way Hilary explained her four step process. I also now love the term SPARKS which refers to anything that promotes deeper thinking. Open-Ended Questions to Promote Inquiry The key to open-ended questions is that they promote further thinking and explanation. Questions that begin with "what, why, how, if etc." are usually open-ended questions. Anything that can be answered with yes or no are typically closed-ended questions and a lot of the time may begin with "can, do etc." I created the sheet above to carry with me on my clipboard when I am doing observations during the day as a reminder or suggestion. Very quickly these just became natural for me and it is just part of my normal conversations throughout the day with the children. This certainly won't be my last post on inquiry, but I hope this answers some questions for those who were wondering just what inquiry-based learning is.
This science center display helps children explore sound with common objects. I collected "found" items to display on the tray with a sign, "What
What are the different types of bilingualism in children, and separating the bilingualism Facts from Fiction
Completed in 2008 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Images by Jeroen Musch. The Hestia Day-Care Centre follows the philosophy of Reggio Emilia. This philosophy also contains a number of explicit statements on architecture,...
This science center display helps children explore sound with common objects. I collected "found" items to display on the tray with a sign, "What
You are currently reading our archived blog. While these older posts may not reflect our current vision and direction, we encourage you to visit our new website at wunderled.com to explore our latest, updated content. There, you'll find a wealth of valuable articles, resources, and insights that align with our current focus and over 60+ Free […]
This is a fun and messy piece of process art that the kids will love. Turn up the music and then drum and splatter and paint away.
KLA Schools' Reggio Emilia preschool and kindergarten programs offer high-quality education. KLA Schools is a leading provider of quality preschool and daycare.
We have moved our blog to a new website. To read this blog and more, please visit: https://passionatelycuriouseducators.com/the-learning-environment-what-message-do-we-send-children/ “ There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment.” – Loris Malaguzzi These were the walls that we had when we started in Kindergarten...and we thought they looked great! We carefully put up these bright pieces of broad cloth and busy borders. We thought this was what Kindergarten was supposed to look like. When we look back at these photos today, we feel instantly overwhelmed. We have made some fundamental changes to our environment structure and walls. When considering making changes to your learning environment or working to understand the importance of making change we reflected on some of these questions together as a team. 1) What message does your classroom send to families/students? The choices that we make while setting up and maintaining our environments send a clear and powerful message to families and children about what is important and valued. When a room is full of clutter and materials that the children are not allowed to touch - what message does that send to them? Are we setting ourselves and the children up for success if their environment is overwhelming or cluttered with too many visuals/materials? We used to use stop signs to let children know which bins they could use since we had not created proper storage for our materials. The signs were distracting and often overwhelming for the children to see materials that they couldn't access. We believe that if the children can see the materials, they should be able to access them! How can you make that change and reduce clutter? Think carefully about what materials need to be kept at school, what materials can simply be thrown out, and how things are organized in the room. 2) How does your room flow? Where are centres in relation to each other? It is important to think about the FLOW in your room. We have tried to limit the number of tables in the classroom so that we have just enough spaces for the children during nutrition breaks. Through our observations we have noticed that children often are gravitated to working on the floor so we try to ensure that there is a balance of tables and open spaces for creative thinkers. 3) LESS is MORE... Storage is always an issue in classrooms, there never seems to be enough! However, there are creative ways to work around storing materials. In our classroom we keep anything that personally belongs to us at home and we have used black fabric to cover just a couple of shelves so that teacher resources are out of sight. Black Fabric Covering Shelves on the Left Wall of the Classroom We start the year with very minimal materials out - in our building area there is nothing but wooden blocks, our art area begins with crayons, paper and pencils and our nature area begins with a limited number of loose parts and a small basket of animals. Although these areas grow and change through the year, we still try not to overcrowd shelves too many materials. We want things that are out to be purposeful and our goal is for the children to learn how to respect and use what is provided before we continue to add more. Our Kindergarten classrooms all share materials - instead of each classroom having small sets of materials, we spent a few days putting all of our resources together. This allows for us to be more intentional with the materials that we are using in our rooms. When pooled together, we have more of each resource and can make better decisions in our purchasing (e.g., not buying 4 of the same puzzle). We have created a shared storage system for each type of material (e.g., building materials, science materials, puppets, dramatic play, playdough, puzzles, sand and water). We all have some staple materials in our rooms, but we rotate in and out other materials that do not need to be there all year. Our shared storage system allows for the educators to be more intentional in selecting materials since everything doesn't have to be out at once! 4) Natural, calm colours...with a focus on student learning and work! We have had families question why the room was so bare and why it was so "brown" in the Fall. We have grown to have great conversation about how it is less stimulating than bright primary colours, explaining that when a provocation is set out it attracts the children's attention, and how documentation or student work adds colours to the walls instead of a busy ABC border or premade poster. 5) How will you present materials to the children? "When materials for learning, such as blocks or paint, paper and brushes are stored and organized in thoughtful ways, it gives the message that these are important tools for learning" - Lisa Burman When we present materials in transparent containers, when we organize paint brushes by size and markers by colour...we are really supporting the children in slowing down. You will see the children make more deliberate and thoughtful choices in the tools that they need. In addition, you will see the children treat the materials as tools, rather than disposable materials. 6) Take your time! Thinking about your environment doesn't need to cost you money or take hours of your time. The process should be gradual, it should involve the children and your colleagues, and it will take time! You do not need to overhaul your entire classroom overnight. You can simply start with one wall or one area and reflect on what changes you might be able to make.
Art Educator Interview with Alie Edwards from Creation Space, a family-oriented art studio in Edmonton, Alberta, where children focus on the process.
The Reggio Emilia classroom is designed to inspire relationships: we imagine children moving across different areas, interacting with each other, experimenting with different textures and tools, moving materials into different settings to explore new properties and characteristics.
tactile, ballons, 5 senses, toddlers, babies
Die einzige Pflicht heißt selbst entscheiden. Was ist Reggio-Pädagogik? Antworten auf Fragen zu diesem Erziehungsmodell.
