Reggio Emilia Approach
We follow the Reggio Emilia approach which is an educational philosophy that focuses on each child’s natural development, emphasizing that learning must make sense to the children. Exploration takes the form of projects with the teachers facilitating learning by planning engagements based on the children’s interests. The teachers ask questions to promote critical thinking and acting as a co-learner and collaborators. We pay careful attention to the presentation of children’s thinking in the form of documentation to show that their work is valued. It makes parents aware of their children’s experiences and allows teachers to better understand children while evaluating their own work.
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Project-based learning
Project based learning is designed to give children the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through engaging projects set around interests, challenges, and problems we may face in the real world. Learning is constructed through a process of observation, investigation, and discovery.
Why stress the expressive arts over literacy and numeracy?
Educators in Reggio Emilia are fully aware of the importance of developing all areas of learning and understanding, not only the logical and linguistic. While literacy and numeracy activities undoubtedly have their place in the daily activities of the nursery, teachers believe strongly in the central role that the expressive arts have to play. They acknowledge the fact that very young children are extremely expressive, with an enormous capacity for sharing feelings and emotion, and that imagination plays a key role in the child’s search for knowledge and understanding. They are convinced of the overriding importance of the learning process rather than the final product. Involvement in the expressive arts allows the children to revisit subjects of interest over and over again through many different media to gain multiple perspectives and a higher level of understanding.