Reggio Emilia Theory and Application

The Reggio Emilia theory and application puts the natural development of people and the close relationships that they share with their environment at the center of its philosophy. The Reggio Emilia approach and curriculum are just one of the many systems we have researched to create the Education for Life Program and this page is meant to function as an ever-expanding archive of open source, free-shared, and duplicable Reggio Emilia theory and application inspired ideas. As this page develops we also organize everything we add here into the primary components of the One Community Education Program: Curriculum for Life, Teaching Strategies for Life, Learning Tools and Toys for Life, and building The Ultimate Classroom. These components are designed to be combined to create endless “Lesson Plans for Life” purposed to grow and evolve what we feel will be the most comprehensive, effective, and diversely applicable free-education program and resource archive in the world. The One Community Foundations of Teaching, Leadership, and Communicating, combined with a collaborative Evaluation and Evolution Component (Portfolio Creation and Maintenance), help us to further grow and adapt both the program and as individuals.

RELATED PAGES

PROGRAM OVERVIEW    ●    STRATEGIES OVERVIEW    ●    OPEN SOURCE PURPOSE

OTHER WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE TO EVOLVING THIS EDUCATION PROGRAM WITH US

SUGGESTIONS    ●    CONSULTANTS    ●    PIONEERS    ●    COLLABORATIVE NOTES

Reggio Emilia Theory and Application

To create this page we have researched a diversity of the components of the Reggio Emilia program and philosophy including: Reggio Emilia approach curriculum, Reggio Emilia classroom design, Reggio Emilia lesson plans, Reggio Emilia teacher training, and more. Our goal is to list here what we feel are the best, simplest, and most usable tools with application and benefit for all ages? If you have ideas stemming from Reggio Emilia theory and application that you feel should be added to this developing resource guide, please use our Education for Life Collaborative Input Page.

NOTE: One Community does not believe there is any one system that is the best. It is our Highest Good of All philosophy to look at all systems and all methodologies. Our goal is to learn and integrate everything we can to better inspire and create the Education for Life program as an open source and free-shared globally collaborative and accessible program available to positively contribute to the education of anyone who chooses to use it.

Here is our continually evolving list of Reggio Emilia Theory and Application inspired ideas divided into the categories of the Education for Life program:

Reggio Emilia Foundations of Leadership, Teaching, and Communicating

If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Reggio inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Foundations of Teaching, Leadership, and Communicating component.

● Children should have some control over the direction of their learning.
● Children should be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing, and hearing.
● Children have a relationship with other children and with material items in the world that they should explore.
● Children should have endless ways, opportunities, and encouragement to express themselves within any environment.
● Teachers are co-learners/researchers and should be active and offer mutual participation in the activity to help ensure that the child is clearly understanding.
● Teaching children is viewed as a collective responsibility of parents, teachers and community, therefore everyone is encouraged to learn the Reggio Approach.
● Incorporate parents into the education process by offering principals to bridge learning between school and home and make it clear that they are expected to partake in discussions about school policy, curriculum, development, planning and evaluation.
● Use the entire environment as a teacher and look for additional opportunities to integrate it. For example, plan new spaces and remodel old ones and include integration of each classroom with the rest of the school, and the school with the surrounding community. Embrace change – children can create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas, and expressing ideas.
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Reggio Emilia Curriculum Ideas

If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Reggio inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Curriculum for Life component.

● Interpersonal relationships with other children.
● Respect, responsibility, and community taught through exploration and discovery within social environment.
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Reggio Emilia Teaching Strategies

If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Reggio inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Teaching Strategies for Life component.

● Documentation. Children document (write, photograph, draw, story) their learnings to show or tell the experience/learning to each other, teachers, and their parents. This process of expressing what was learned enables teachers to reevaluate the process of teaching, parents to understand what their child is learning, and children to reinforce material.
● Give children the opportunity to understand their relationships with other children.
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Reggio Emilia Learning Tools and Toys

If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Reggio inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Learning Tools and Toys for Life component.

● Cameras always available to document life and learnings.
● Microscopes always available open use and encouraging children to look through them, bringing outside findings into the classroom.
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Reggio Emilia Classroom Design

If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Reggio inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Ultimate Classroom component.

● There is a center for gathering
● Indoor classrooms are filled with plants and natural light.
● Specialty classrooms such as ‘inventors workshop’, art studio, science lab, open kitchen, computer lab, etc. all offer exposure starting at preschool.
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OTHER SYSTEMS EXPLORED

Montessori   ●   Waldorf   ●   Orff   ●   Multi-Intelligence   ●   Bloom’s Taxonomy   ●   Study Tech