Our school is Reggio Emilia Inspired. We believe that the child has a "hundred languages" with which they learn.
"Children are born with the capacity to learn and seek out knowledge. Children are not assumed to be empty vessels to be filled with instruction;they are seen as ready to learn when the right, best, most appropriate opportunities are offered." Loris Malaguzzi
Children are whole beings and therefore should be offered learning in all areas of the self. Including physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. The program is holistic meaning that early literacy, science, art, and math are integrated into all daily activities.
"Many programs are organized into a rigid timetable, and are often one-shot activities started, packed up, and put away within pre-specified time periods, usually counted as minutes." Loris Malaguzzi
In our classroom, children are free to work and play without the frequent interruptions and transitions so common in most of our early childhood programs.
Children often work in small groups, the learning is based on the childrens interests. Providing activities based on interest is critical to a child's learning. Children are more likely to be motivated to learn when they are interested, they will be more engaged.
Children are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through all of their available expressive, communicative, and cognitive languages, weather they be words, movement, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play, or music.
Children become researchers in the classroom, learning to ask questions and collect data with which to answer them.
As a child uses the materials the teacher observes not only the child's attention to the materials but also the child's level of creativity and the questions he or she poses. Thus the teacher becomes a co researcher, discovering many interesting items to introduce that will help the children to move deeper into the subject they are working on.
Learning is made visable through careful documentation. Teachers document through pictures, displays, journals. The children's art work, words, and pictures are all on display. The teachers describe what the children were doing, thinking, feeling, wondering, and questioning.
These documentations are revisited many times in order to review where the children were at the beginning of a project, where they are going, and what they have learned.
"Children are born with the capacity to learn and seek out knowledge. Children are not assumed to be empty vessels to be filled with instruction;they are seen as ready to learn when the right, best, most appropriate opportunities are offered." Loris Malaguzzi
Children are whole beings and therefore should be offered learning in all areas of the self. Including physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. The program is holistic meaning that early literacy, science, art, and math are integrated into all daily activities.
"Many programs are organized into a rigid timetable, and are often one-shot activities started, packed up, and put away within pre-specified time periods, usually counted as minutes." Loris Malaguzzi
In our classroom, children are free to work and play without the frequent interruptions and transitions so common in most of our early childhood programs.
Children often work in small groups, the learning is based on the childrens interests. Providing activities based on interest is critical to a child's learning. Children are more likely to be motivated to learn when they are interested, they will be more engaged.
Children are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through all of their available expressive, communicative, and cognitive languages, weather they be words, movement, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play, or music.
Children become researchers in the classroom, learning to ask questions and collect data with which to answer them.
As a child uses the materials the teacher observes not only the child's attention to the materials but also the child's level of creativity and the questions he or she poses. Thus the teacher becomes a co researcher, discovering many interesting items to introduce that will help the children to move deeper into the subject they are working on.
Learning is made visable through careful documentation. Teachers document through pictures, displays, journals. The children's art work, words, and pictures are all on display. The teachers describe what the children were doing, thinking, feeling, wondering, and questioning.
These documentations are revisited many times in order to review where the children were at the beginning of a project, where they are going, and what they have learned.