Introduction
The Bronte Street School
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Image of the Child
All children have potential, curiosity and interest in constructing their learning, negotiating with everything their environment brings to them.
Children are strong and capable.
The child is a collaborator. The program focuses on each child in relation to other children, their family, the teachers and the community rather than on each child in isolation.
The child is a communicator. The program supports a child?s intellectual development through a focus on representation including words, movement, drawing, painting, building, collage, dramatic play and music.
Children have the right to use many materials in order to discover and communicate what they know, understand, wonder about, question, feel and imagine. The children make their thinking visible, supported by the teachers, through these avenues.
Children have the right to feel safe, cared for, respected for opinions, and encouraged by caring, professional teachers.
Parents expect a well equipped program to be loaded with toys and teaching materials. To provide quality care for young children, we must constantly promote the child as an amazing scientist, artist, and an architect who can use much of what the world has to offer. |
The Environment
The environment is the third teacher which sends out non verbal messages to people. Our environments are welcoming and filled with wonder and delight. The environment stimulates children's learning. Our program teachers are proud of the work of our children as it is displayed with respect and caring. The words of the children are also respected as they are documented and displayed for all to revisit and share. Our environments are filled with real life like plants, nature, real pots and pans in our house areas, pictures of real animals and photographs of our children, parents and teachers. Mirrors are evident everywhere. Mirrors promote positive self esteem and reflection. Children find joy in using space that is organized and respected.
Projects
The children and teachers engage in project work on a daily basis. Projects are investigations of a topic that the children are interested in such as welcoming a new baby into your family, our community, gardens and flowers, and going into kindergarten. Projects engage children and teachers in observations, developing a dialogue of thought provoking questions, to document the events and to celebrate the joy of learning. The ideas of the children are encouraged. There are no wrong answers. Questions and thoughts are researched to discover new ideas about topics. The children research and experiment with the different ideas from projects through art experiences, through reading stories and looking at pictures in books, puppets, clay/play dough, block play and there are one hundred more of these languages to express. The one hundred languages includes art experiences, creative movement, painting, drawing, printing, reading, weaving, block play, building and collage etc.
Our projects encourage and support the one hundred languages of children.
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Documentation of our projects
Making learning visible is the purpose of our documentation panels. Panels are created to allow the teachers, children and the parents to view and revisit a child's learning as depicted through photographs, the children's words, and a piece of the child's art or work. Documenting the process of the activity encourages children to reflect on work previously accomplished, enables everyone to understand why a child chose her direction for work on a project. This reflection on the teacher's part develops and extends the projects. The documentation of the children's work is respectful and aesthetically pleasing. |
We acknowledge the incredible work of the children, parents and teachers in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Their approach to early childhood education has inspired many educators from around the world to visit these schools and welcome many aspects of this approach into our North American schools. We at MCRC strive to incorporate the principles of the Reggio inspired curriculum into our programs.