Reggio Emilia Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Berkshire Country Day School

Reggio Magic: Open-Ended Playthings

Part One: THE PLAY DOUGH

Something old: Last week, I put a new invitation out on a table: freshly made lavender-scented play dough and familiar tools — our play dough scissors and small kitchen knives.

Something new: A basket of shiny glass stones, and a basket of small assorted stones from outside.

All week the children played with them, enchanted by the feel of the stones — smooth and rough, shiny and dull, of different weights. They pressed them into the playdough, hid them in the dough, stacked layer of stones and dough, each child calmed by the lavender, and absorbed in a little world of their own making.

Over the week we saw ice cream, burgers, snowmen, islands, an apple, Mickey Mouse, a house, a road, snakes, a rock castle, a cake. As they played, they talked about their creations; their hands squeezed, rolled, cut, and pinched; they became more familiar with scissors; they talked about colors; they shared stones and tools; they started to notice one another’s creations and became inspired to do more.

Once again, for the millionth time, I fell in love with open-ended playthings.

Open-ended materials for young children are materials without a pre-determined script. They can be used and manipulated in many ways, limited only by the children’s imagination. Not only do children practice motor, language, and social skills with them, but they also encourage imaginative play. Imaginative play — the cornerstone, the essence, and the driving force of young children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development.

Watching the children so enraptured by the play dough and stone combination, I thought it might be fun to choose another familiar classroom open-ended material and reflect on its many uses.

Part Two: THE SILK SCARF

One of the most important objects in our classroom is our basket of brightly colored silk scarves. How does a simple silk scarf make its way through the school day of our two- and three-year-olds?

HIDING

Under the scarf, we hide ourselves, toy animals and little people, a drum, a block, a ball! Even more fun, we hide each other!

MOVEMENT

We dance, parade, wiggle, and shake. We wave the scarves high and spin them around us. We run across the gym with them, flying like the wind!

SLEEP

We use it as a blanket for ourselves–and for our babies!

PREPOSITIONS

We hide UNDER it. We pass it THROUGH our legs. We drape it OVER us. We sit ON it. We wave it AROUND us. We wave it ABOVE us. We put them IN the basket.

VISION

We look through it and see the world tinted in color.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

On a picnic! (the scarf is our blanket) To the beach! (the scarf is our towel) To the store! (the scarf is our coat) To the rescue! (the scarf is our cape).

BABIES

We use the scarves to swaddle them, and to lay over them on their beds.

SOUND

When we wave them hard, they make a little “snap.” When we cover the big drum with them, they muffle the drum beat.

TOUCH

They flutter over our faces and our arms. They feel soft on our skin.

AN IMAGINATIVE PLAY UNIFORM!

Sometimes while wearing their scarves, the children go about their business, cooking in the play kitchen, drawing, or playing in the dollhouse.

At these times, the scarves are like Superman’s transforming cape, empowering the children with greater focus and imagination, and enabling their young brains to soar!

By BCD Blog|2018-02-23T06:21:28-05:00February 23rd, 2018|

Creating a Community of Two-Year-Olds

What does a veteran elementary and early education teacher do over Winter Break?

Fly to Ireland for the very first time to spend eight days exploring the Emerald Isle
Pack one book: Do Parents Matter? by Robert LeVine and Sarah LeVine

I reveled in Ireland’s beauty and history, and its friendly and gracious people – truly, every shopkeeper and pub waiter, every bus driver and ticket-taker, had a smile and friendly word, and often a story or two to make us laugh.

And I also read the book!

The LeVines, respectively a professor of education and human development and an anthropologist, have spent a lifetime studying child-rearing practices in diverse cultures across our globe. In general, they have found that children can be happy and healthy in a wide range of conditions, and guided by a wide range of parenting practices.

In my new professional challenge as a teacher of two-year-olds, this book was most helpful to me by opening my eyes further to this point: “The behavior of toddlers in highly responsive to their parents’ priorities.” How do we use a Reggio-inspired philosophy to bring cohesion to this diverse group? How do our school priorities influence the behavior of these young children entrusted to our care?

As I traveled around Ireland, I thought about how Irish children observe and hear, from infancy, the adults in their lives engaging with strangers with politeness, humor, and friendliness. They also attend schools financed by the government and managed by the Church, with all of its attendant values. They share a strong and clear historical identity.

Before heading to Ireland, as I reflected on my first months of life with our B2 classroom, I felt truly in awe of how strongly the children had become a community. They announce the arrival of their classmates with gusto, greet each another with a hug or at least a smile, notice when somebody is sad, and offer a truck or an animal to share.

In October, when I first observed a group of them engaged in interactive play, initiated on their own, I was amazed. “This is not typical two-year-old behavior,” I thought. But then I observed it more and more – in pairs and in small groups, the children were “cooking” together, hiding together, driving to the beach together, coordinating their movements as they ran with a hoop, assigning family roles, and on and on.

I thought, “Given the opportunity and the encouragement, two-year-olds are capable of so much!”

I was struck by how quickly the children’s sense of class community developed, even at this young age. I asked myself, “What have we done in this brand new Program for Two-Year-Olds that has promoted this community spirit? How have we conveyed our priority of ‘Community’ to these very young children?”

We arrange the day’s routines and the environment to support opportunities for cooperative play. A round table is regularly covered with communal paper, where the children gather and experiment together with paints and other art materials. A comfy floor cushion is large enough for four children to sit together with books. A dollhouse sits on a table where children can access it from both sides, and play opposite each other. Percussion instruments are usually used on a round rug, which encourages circle movement and communal drumming.

Over the first weeks of school we ventured out on daily walks around our campus. These walks had no purpose other than for everybody to explore their new environment together. The children gradually learned to travel as a group. The quick ones had to wait for the slower ones. The ones who loved to wander learned to come when called. When somebody fell, the others noticed and announced it with concern. When one child discovered something fun or interesting – a pile of leaves, a bench to climb on, a fence with holes – classmates gathered.

It’s not always easy – to wait, to share, to disagree. But through hours of shared experiences, and with encouragement to be caring, friendly, and inclusive, these two-year-olds have often pushed past the comfortable realm of “parallel play” and into the often messy but rewarding experience of group play and teamwork.

Just as the Irish children absorb their cultural heritage of helpful and gracious hospitality, our two-year-old children have made a strong start in absorbing BCD’s priority of a supportive community.

By BCD Blog|2018-01-11T13:21:27-05:00January 11th, 2018|

The Exciting Outdoors

When young children are outside, everything is exciting. Interesting sensations and challenges surround them. Reggio Emilia philosophy identifies three teachers of young children: family, school teachers, and the environment. Certainly we pay attention to designing and adjusting the classroom environment to foster children’s curiosity, focus, and social growth. The outdoors is also an integral part of the life of a Reggio-inspired classroom, and at BCD we are lucky to be able to step outside and have such a wonderful array of experiences for the children.

Up! I DID IT! Bug! Plane!

During their first seven weeks at BCD, we spent a lot of time outdoors with the two year olds, exploring our wonderful campus. The children learned to climb stone walls, ladders, and benches, and gained confidence in jumping. They have found and observed spiders and bees; examined rotting apples; felt the wet grass; made pillows of pine needles, and banged and drummed on overturned canoes. They run down hills and climb back up. They look UP — at low and high flying airplanes, at the flag on the flagpole, at birds and butterflies, and through the branches to the tree tops. They have dug in the sand, lain in piles of leaves, hidden in bushes, and splashed water.

These are magical moments. They provide opportunities for new vocabulary. They are often social and interactive with friends. They give the children the chance to learn and practice new physical. skills. The father of one two year old recently pointed out to me one of the most important benefits when he wrote this to me: over the weekend while the older kids played soccer, his daughter “led me around the school grounds a little. She pointed to many places on campus, and told some three- word stories about them. It was nice to see how many good memories she has already made in your class.”

The outdoor BCD campus is indeed a “third teacher.”

By BCD Blog|2017-11-01T17:11:53-04:00November 1st, 2017|

Kicking Off a Year of Reggio

At the heart of the Reggio Emilia philosophy is an emergent curriculum which builds on the interests of the children. The curriculum is not pre-planned by the teachers. It is flexible and originates from the children’s thoughts, ideas, and curiosities. We observe the children carefully, watching them play, discovering their interests, and listening to them talk. Topics for study are captured from these observations.

“Where’s Julia?”
Julia Kreilkamp, Beginner 2s Lead Teacher

Very quickly in our two-year-old classroom this September, we noticed that the children loved to find places to hide. In a walk around campus during the first week of school, the children turned a big bush into a hiding place; they found apples on the ground and started to hide them in a hole in the apple tree; they draped a silk scarf over their heads to hide from us.

We noticed their love of hiding places and began to invite them to explore other ways of hiding, and also ways they could hide objects. For example, we placed a large cardboard box in the room one morning. We hid shells in the sandbox. Another day, we hid small animals under larger shells in the sand. We draped the scarves over the balls in the gym.

The children started to find new ways to hide objects and to hide themselves: animals hid in the stacking boxes or in the play kitchen; the children crawled under a runner rug to hide.

While the children are fully engaged with the “hiding,” new opportunities for language development arise. We use prepositions: in, on, around, under, over, beside. We ask questions that the children can’t wait to answer: “WHO is in the box?” “WHAT is in under the shell?” “WHERE is the ball?”

As well, the hiding provides a multitude of opportunities for social interaction. The children snuggled up together to hide in the box. They delighted in “finding” a new friend under the scarf. Soon they were in cahoots together hiding in the rhododendron bushes outside. They seemed to learn one another’s names more quickly because of the hiding project. Our classroom community grew stronger and richer because of our shared experience with hiding places.

“X Marks the Spot”
Vicky Sideropolous, Beginner 3s and PreK Lead Teacher

Recently in the 3s/4s Preschool class, there has been a growing interest in drawing treasure maps. We took that interest and began to explore the possibilities. We started by putting out maps and letting the children look more closely at them, draw on them, discuss them. We talked about why maps are important, why we need them, and what they are for. Ms. Junod and I have been offering several possible directions for this study to take, materials to facilitate this, and opportunities to help the children think deeper.

In the beginning, the students were given an invitation to explore maps. Blank maps were put on the table with markers and magnifying glasses. Students decided that they would trace the roads. Some added houses, some drew in schools. There were toy shops and airports, trees and lakes. Their maps were coming alive! In a meeting, we discussed why we have maps and what maps tell us. The children said that “maps show water where it is blue,” “they can tell you how to get to a toy store,” “you can see airports.” Through their play with maps, the children are working on spatial relationships skills, as well as language specific to maps (such as directions and geographic terms) and general language in our lively, interactive discussions.

While studying maps, we have also been finding ways for the class to build community and learn how to work together as a team. A week into our Map Study, we set up a treasure hunt, starting with a map of the school and a big “X” marking “the spot.” The students had to figure out how to find the “X.” Ms. J and I guided the class in ways to collaborate, including how to problem solve as a group and take how to turns. Finally, after a lot of discussion, the class worked together, followed the maps, and successfully found all three “X’s”!

Every year we explore new topics, every year there are new and exciting things to learn. Stay tuned!

By BCD Blog|2017-10-16T16:54:50-04:00October 16th, 2017|

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