Our Early Years Teaching Philosophy

Our Philosophy

“Do nothing without joy.”
-Loris Malaguzzi

Our Early Years program is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education. The Reggio Emilia Approach was developed after WWII by Loris Malaguzzi and the parents in Reggio Emilia, Italy. It is an educational philosophy based on an image of children as strong, capable, competent, and possessed of great potentials for learning and development.

At the heart of this philosophy is the image of the child as an explorer and researcher of the world, with infinite potentials.
This image dovetails with the natural development of children, also central to the philosophy.
Children are naturally curious learners who learn through touch, movement, listening, observation, and experimentation. They ask questions with depth and of great import; they construct hypotheses, test them, and develop theories; they explore and discover.

In Reggio-inspired classrooms, educators endeavor always to provide learning contexts and conditions that allow children to become active, critical citizens.
The environment is a teacher as much as the adults who share in and facilitate learning experiences. Educators and the environment itself offer countless ways

and opportunities for exploration and expression. Children are offered a wide variety of materials to explore and with which to experiment: light, shadow, clay; leaves, sand and natural materials; nuts, bolts, wire; paint, crayon, water; fruits, insects, plant life. As the children work, teachers observe and listen carefully, documenting the interests of the children and the areas of learning around which their play and experimentation revolve in order to offer future contexts to the children that will deepen their learning experiences.

Long-term projects begin with the interests of the children. Educators observe, ask questions, and document the children’s work and conversations as they play and explore. Teachers analyze their documentation to determine what children are doing and almost doing, what their thoughts center around, what relationships the children are identifying between materials or experiences in order to offer new materials and questions to the children to provoke their further exploration. These projects do not necessarily follow a linear progression; they evolve.

Projects move along the trajectory of the children’s thoughts and discoveries, in ways that are often unanticipated, as they are propelled by the interests and questions of and problems recognized by the children themselves.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE REGGIO EMILIA APPROACH IN DEPTH: https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/

Our Early Years Teaching Philosophy | EIS

The Reggio Emilia Approach:Our Early Years program is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education.

The Reggio Emilia Approach was developed after WWII by Loris Malaguzzi and the parents in Reggio Emilia, Italy. It is an educational philosophy based on an image of children as strong, capable, competent, and possessed of great potentials for learning and development.

Our Philosophy

The Reggio Emilia Approach:
Our Early Years program is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education.