0.2 Part two: special topics  (Page 6/39)

Third, young children learn through meaningful activities in which different subject areas are integrated. Open-endeddiscussions and long-term activities bring together whole-language activities, science, socialstudies, dramatic play, and artistic creation. Activities that are meaningful and relevant to the child's lifeexperiences provide opportunities to teach across the curriculum and assist children in seeing the interrelationships of things they arelearning.

Teachers have many opportunities to integrate curriculum. For example, the arrival of a new sibling is a commonoccurrence. Teachers might ask parents of children in their class to contribute photographs of the children as infants, toddlers, andpreschoolers, so that the children who are interested can make scrapbooks. If such photos are unavailable, the children can draw or cut pictures frommagazines, or dictate stories about remembered foods, toys, or bedroom furnishings. Such activities, designed to help a child deal with a new baby,also help children to use spoken and written language and to select and organize materials.

Fourth, young children benefit from in-depth exploration and long-term, open-ended projects which are started eitherfrom a chance event, a problem posed by one or more children, or an experience planned and led in a flexible way by teachers (Edwards&Springate, 1993; Clark, 1994). The adults act as resource persons, problem-posers,guides, and partners to the children in the process of discovery and investigation. They take their cues from children through carefullistening and observation, and know when to encourage risk-taking and when to refrain from interfering.

The reggio classroom

A Reggio classroom is noticeably different from a traditional one. Large windows fill the rooms with light, and there isplenty of open space allowing room for children to move around. The room is decorated with children's art. All of the decorations in the room arecreated by the children. Natural materials such as pine cones, seashells, and wood are freely available and encourage exploration, expression andlearning.

The goal of the Reggio approach is to educate the whole child - spirit and heart as well as mind. It's a holistic approach toeducation, one in which art - in all forms - plays a large part. Reggio teachers allow children to express themselves in ways other than writing orspeaking.

According to the Reggio approach, each child is born with 100 "languages" to help them represent their ideas, but society,parents, and teachers take away 99 and leave the spoken language as the only way of expression. The goal of the school is to give back the other 99 -allowing for an enormous range of expression.

Children may start the day with an assembly and discussion. Back in their classrooms, they're free to move around the room,work with other children and become involved in projects of their own choosing.

Artistic opportunity abounds. Children often learn to write through clay - they form their letters and numbers with it. Thechildren built the letters using wire as a base so that the letters stand up.