Why we have incorporated Reggio in our lives

A post on How we Montessori triggered a discussion about Reggio Emilia, and I thought the topic was interesting enough to share it widely.

After mentionning Reggio Emilia to her, she confessed that she was rather turned off by this because of the artistic aspect of it.  And I could completely relate as I had a similar feeling at first.

I kept being pulled back to Reggio, but would always stop myself in my tracks at the mention of the "hundred language of children" which implied artistic activities.

I am a scientist, in my job and in my head.  Art was not something that was promoted when I was a child.  I have no problem letting my children explore art, contrarily to what my experience as a child was, but I don't feel like the best person to guide them through this since my limited experience and knowledge of arts.  X is not a very artistic boy either.  He is a very reality based child.  He is very creative in what he does, but not in arts per se.  How could Reggio work here?

But surprisingly, I have been able to find my niche in Reggio, or maybe what I do is Project based "homeshooling", (but truly, I do not think ones need to homeschool in order to incorporate that in their lives), it does not matter, I do not want to get stuck in semantics here.

What I didn't understand is 100 languages of children doesn't have to be limited to art.  You can find your own definition of a language, as long as somebody can express what they are learning, in a manner they are comfortable to.


One of the principle that I have always adhered to, coming from Montessori, was the idea of following the child.   She said that the child is not an empty vessel in which we could pour knowledge,  but rather an individual that can and know what he needs to build himself.   Letting him choose his experiences, and letting him be intimate with those is important for him to grow.  Reggio allows just that, following the interest of the child, just not in a set environment, with specific material.

Reggio states that the child should be able to work in an area of interest for the amount of time he wants, with the means that speaks to him, without being directed or lured to learning a specific set of knowledge.   Choosing an interest and building on it as long as the child can, as long as his interest flourish within that topic, and let oneself go with the flow along other interests that are somehow connected.  That is what Reggio is about.  The beginning of a project includes brainstorming, new ideas that needs to be developed, tried and improved.  It means discussions and reading have to take place to get ready, ideas have to be shared analyzed, fine tuned and even documented... so many skills that are very welcome in life.
The child should be able to revisit his work and even start it over again, and this should not be seen as a waste of time, but rather as adding another layer of knowledge, a new experiment of the previous work, seen with new eyes, and with more experience this time.  The child is able to choose what he needs to learn and how to learn it following his own interior"plan"and we should trust this blueprint of construction.  This does not mean that the child should not be guided though, and guidance can be an asset to the child's learning.
Feels a lot like Montessori Cosmic Education to me, with an emphasis on expression.

Montessori insisted upon the importance of attention, letting the child have the space and time to develop this.   This is nurtured and sustained by letting the child live in his project at his own pace.

So really, with this angle, I am not surprised Reggio was appealing to me, it feels so close to Montessori.


So now, how about the expression part?

I think there is more to painting and modeling for expressive means.

X is a builder.  He loves mechanics.  The down to earth kid.
When he is pursuing a topic, he looks at books, looks at images and study them.  He regularly ask me to make photocopies of these images and he pins them to his board.

He study these images and he learns the vocabulary that is associated to it.  I have even seen him identifying part of these drawings.

More often then not, he tries to build something that is associated with the topic, often with success, sometimes not.

In this project about space, he looked at launch pads that he recreated with blocks for block play later during the day.  I even saw him try to make a astronaut suit to be used in prop play.

photo taken by X and used as an inspiration to make an astronaut suit 

We have visited museums about space shuttles and space, after he asked and found these expositions.

Recently, he has been interested in becoming better at drawing.  I don't think his art experience will go any further then this.  But I agree that a minimal knowledge of drawing and sketching is an asset, even to a scientist.  He sketched rockets and space shuttles, designing new features on them.  He talked to us extensively about those drawing, explaining what parts does what.
And don't get me started on LEGOs.  We have many weeks of rocket building with LEGOs.  I think this is a mean of expression that is just as valuable then painting.

Photographs are also a big part of X documenting his work.  He loves to photograph what he does and have the pictures printed.  I am sure that he is about to go to another level in photography and try photo montages and such.

Photograph taken by X at one of the space museum.  He was interested, no, fascinated by the mechanics of the reactors

Other things possible are the launch of a blog, newsletters, whether written or with images only, making a lecture to member of the family or friends, making an exposition of photograph taken, or a book maybe or even a video...I think the possibilities are endless, if we can get out of the art (painting, modeling...) box.


This space topic has been on for months now.  He has learn a lot through it, and not only about space.  About vocabulary, about weather, about geography, about launch pads, famous astronauts, moon exploration and so on.  And I see that it is about to shift.  The topic of telescopes is the turning point.  He has been getting a wider interest in using the tools for observations: magnifying glass, binoculars...and most of all how they work.  I don't know where this will settle, but I will be curious to know.


These are the reasons we chose to incorporate Reggio in our house.  We feel as parents, that the importance of being the director of your life and of your learning is one that cannot be understated.  We truly believe in the capacity of the child to build himself and the need, as parent, to guide them without directing them.  I have seen X do things he would never had done if it would have been part of an imposed project.  And I think that the learning not only takes place on the topic the child is researching, but also at meta level: learning about learning, which curiously, is not a topic taught in many school around here, and yet is one that is necessary in life.

To close this post, I would like to link to a video that I found while researching rocket projects for X.  I really loved looking at it, but X was truly inspired by it, by wanting to retouch his ideas, try something else, and revisit ideas he had but didn't think would work.
We both loved how Reggio and Montessori were co living in the learning experience.  I have to admit that is has influenced how we are going about homeschooling here.  Note that the project is mainly construction based, there is not a lot of art, drawing being put aside, during the construction of this.  I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did!

If you are interested in Reggio or project based homeschooling, I strongly suggest Lori's book Project Based Homeschooling, which was the book I needed to make the plunge and most importantly, have a better understanding of this.

Life in the polar region

Cold has been upon us big time lately.  Yesterday was a record day of -39 degrees.  We are talking about fast frost bite upon getting outside if a part of your skin is uncovered.

Freezing.

Our time outside has thus been somehow limited this week, and so what better days to learn about Arctic and Polar regions?  We sure have the feel of how cold these regions can be all year round (or almost...)

I took the Polar animals play to another level.  Producing ice is more then easy right now, and it is really fast.

I had planned this activity for E, but again, all three of them were interested in participating, and the activity triggered many questions about ice, cold, Polar regions, frost and so on

E's interest was the name of the animals, both in english and french.  He played a lot about the connections between mothers and babies.

X's interest was more about the interaction constituting the food chain: who eats who and most of all how.  His other very deep interest was about the evolution of the block of ice.  Why we heard the ice crack, if this could happen in the Polar regions too, and what were the consequences of this.  Why the middle of the ice was melting sooner then the top part and so on.  I left the bin out for most part of the day, and I saw him go back and forth to see what happens as the ice melts.  He did until the ice cracked under the weight of the animals, this is the part he was waiting for.

E brought his book out to enhance the play.  He loved copying some of the scenes of the book on our ice patch.

How I did that:

I used Schleish animals, although the scales are not compatible... (which irritated me a little).
To make the hole in the ice, I used a plastic bowl.  I left the bin outside with the bowl in it yesterday during the day.  The bowl was filled with sand so that it could sink in the water.  DOn't fill it with water, unless you don't mind leaving the plastic bowl in the ice patch.
Right after dinner, I got it in so that the ice would melt just enough so that I could remove the plastic bowl.  As soon as this was done, I returned the bin outside until this morning.  Then we just had to add water to simulate the ocean.
The same could be done in a big freezer; right now here, the freezer is used for free...

Christmas color matching activity

Kate's blog An Everyday Story is chock full of inspiring ideas.  But this one has been tempting me the most for a while. (do yourself a favor, and visit her blog!)

On the same day we got our Christmas tree, we had to go at the hardware store.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity, the moment was perfect.

Just after setting up the tree, I got the paint chips out.  They attracted both X and M right away.

I like how it triggered discussions about their guess at what was the closest green, but also which was their favorite shade, and what was the difference between them (more yellow, more blue...)

I was hoping it would eventually slide towards a test of trying to reproduce the said colors, but it has not happened yet.  I think my invitation might not have been clear enough.
I'll give it a new try soon.

Snow storm on the ice field

I am not a fan of plastic, and I try to avoid it as much as I can.  But there is one plastic toy I am willing to make an exception for: the Schleish's animals.  I like how realistic they are, and they are always enticing for E (2yo).

I stumbled upon a Polar region set, and this inspired me ideas for open ended play that was very much in the season.

Although it has been looking like winter outside for the last few weeks, it hasn't for the last 48 hours.  I was planning on making an ice field for X to play with, but after 24 hours outside, the plastic bin I had filled with water was still not even close to be frozen.  So I decided to go with plan B: the shaving cream.

The invitation

Well I am glad I did.  I was not expecting this to be a tactile activity, but shaving cream kinda change the deal.  I didn't know whether E would be as interested to it with the dislike he currently has for tactile stuff.

I guess there is a hidden power to shaving cream.  After a few minutes of not being sure, and wiping his hand almost every minute, he ended up just embracing the whole thing and get dirty.

M couldn't pass up an opportunity to play.  SHE is into whatever tactile thing there is.

I tried to interact with E during the activity.  I asked him how the cream felt on his hands, and if it was smooth of rough.  He said that it was"cold but not cold".  He was expecting it to be cold, but it wasn't.  He built a house for the Bear family and asks M to help him make a "road to walk on".

While he was building, I could see that he was taming the feel of his hand being dirty.  Many times I pointed out how his hands were full of shaving cream, and he said" look mommy, hands are dirty!" with the biggest smile ever.  He even took the time to rub some of the cream on himself, something he would have never done before.

This experience has really pushed him over something he hadn't crossed before.  I can't wait to see if this will also apply to finger paint.  I'll give it a try later this week.


Here is the set up:

I used the sensorial table, and installed the light table on it.  The shaving cream was put into a plastic bin that I use regularly for these types f activities.  I also used the wrapping as "backdrop" to set the mood.  The tub on the right is full of cold water.  I didn't know how they would use it, but it ended up being the sea.  The animals all went swimming in there, and M had the penguins hunt for fishes in there.  It was also very practical to have a tub for a quick washing during the activity.

Beside the table, I had another bin, our cleaning bin, that contains old prefold diapers, a roll of scott towels, and a supply of plastic bags.

The room where this happens is adjacent to the bathroom.  Right after this, both M and E were sent to a much needed bath.

Where the drawing morning led us to

One thing I have taken from Lori's book Project Based Homeschooling, was that it is a good thing to let a project hanging on.  This allows the child to come back to it and add over time, bringing fresh ideas and new input.

Seeing the spontaneousness of yesterday's project, I thought it was a good time to put this recommendation to use.

And you know what, many things happened.

Some stamping was done

Games were invented and played (keeping E busy while we were working on school stuff)

And we even had our first glimpse of Christmas(...as per request) amongst the drawing of swimming pool (see the round thing in the picture above...  I guess X is still in summer, and truthfully, so am I!)

items were added at any times of the day, according to the current inspiration

And cooperation was learned during this time, as everybody had to work on the same canvas.  Tears were shed, and new ideas came from them, making this drawing even more interesting to look at.

And after a long day of drawing and collaborating...

I heard the rustling of paper few minutes ago.  Still in pyjamas, sleepy eyes not yet completely opened, another drawing is on the way with old ideas and completely new ones.

I wonder where this one will go. (and right now, I even hear some maths going on, namely multiplications!  Indeed, I cannot wait to see!)

drawing morning

This is what I woke up to this morning (yes, I managed to sleep "late"...)

I love how having many art material at child's reach is enhancing their creativity lately.
Don't get me wrong, we always had art supplies at child's level, but since I have created a time each day for arts, it seems to happen more and also spontaneously during the day.  They are incorporating arts in many aspects of their play and their learning. I guess now it is part of their days, part of their routines like anything else.

I love how the oldests care for the littlest, and always makes sure he is included in the process, and has access to all the material he wished for.

As I am sitting and writing, I hear M, that barely just got up, and that is already participating in this common drawing.  Can wait to see what they all come up with.  I guess formal lessons will be delayed later today...  In the meantime, let see what other interesting surprises this day brings.

Have a wonderful monday!

Tactile experiences, or exploring finger painting

One of the best recommendations that I had seen about implanting  Reggio inspired learning at home is to start by learning about the mediums that the child can use, and then, make them available at all times for further exploration by the child.

So I decided to start our art exploration by using a tactile medium, since it would be exciting for M, and much needed for E (he is still unsure about having his hands dirty...).

We started with a hand painting kit E got this summer, but that we didn't get to use before.

As anticipated, E started by exploring the paint with tools, not being fond of using his hands.

it took him a while to get his hands right in the paint, but since he say the 2 others do it, he finally gave in and tried it.  He didn't enjoy it all that much.  He was much more happier with tools.

M and X used everything at their dispositions, hands included.  X didn't stay long in his exploration, his rocket project was more interesting to him.

This week, we'll do finger painting again, except this time, I won't offer tools to see if E will engage nonetheless.  We'll also try different kinds of papers (textured, or glossy) to see how the paint slides and cover on each type of paper.

I plan on putting together many tactile activities for E in the next weeks.

transitioning to a project based homeschooling (or Reggio inspired learning)

During the deschooling period we went through, I had many days and night of thinking.  I had to reorganize my thoughts, my believes and my vision of things to suit the life we want to live and make sure that we are moving towards our goals.

One of the first and most useful thing I did was to define this, our goals.  As parents, as persons as a family, having an idea of where we are going makes the travel a lot easier, and the chances to get lost along the way less significant.

After many discussions, we decided that the most important values we wanted to instil in our children was the love of learning, independence, responsibility (for themselves, theirs acts, and their learning...amongst all things), creativity and respect and knowledge for the world and it's living creature, whether they are people, animal or else.  There are many other things we wish or them, but this is the basis.

I toured a lot of blogs during this time, and read intensively on many educational philosophy. I think we are lucky as homeschooling parents to have so many choices and so many resources to help educate our children.  And I am glad to have had this mountain of possibilities to choose amongst or at least be influenced by in order to find our right learning philosophy.  Many of these philosophy were very interesting and sure have their good and not so good sides.  But not all of them were in line with OUR goals, and so having setting those beforehand was really useful in not feeling overwhelmed in the process.

Truth be told, we will not follow blindly any curriculum or educational methods of any kinds.  We will always make sure that the choices we make are in line with these goals I have mentioned before, and also make sure we are comfortable doing it.

With that being said, project based homeschooling is one of the philosophies that resonated them most with us, and what we wish for our children.

For the last few days/weeks, we have been working hard at implementing project based homeschooling in our lives in so many ways.  X is very excited about it, and really so are we.  Reggio inspired learning is not the only type of learning that is taking place here, literature based learning is taking up the other big chuck of our days.  But since I have learned, in the last few weeks, that it is WAYYYY better to implement things one at a time, the Reggio part is taking up most of our energies right now.  I will work on implementing the literature part better after we are set with this first phase.

Magnetism

X's current interest is magnetism and electricity.   I have been seeing it all week, and it has ignited some of his best projects so far.

It was hard not talking, and letting him make mistakes

but it was worth the tongue biting it necessitated!

And all of this pushed him to do things that I never would have expected

We still have some adjustments to make to our day, mostly regarding the use of textbooks in the core subjects.  I am currently looking into Charlotte Mason to see if I could find answers we are looking for.

We are not out of the wood yet, but we are seeing the light for sure.

This path we are on... - finding a rhythm

it is a new one, one that I have never explored before, and although we have our ups and our downs, I can see that we are getting there.  Oh yes, we are!

I have been reading a lot, reading new books, re-reading old ones, and thinking.  I think my brain might actually be overworked from all this, but it has been / is helpful.  I am taking bits and pieces of many educational philosophies, and we are making it our own.  I love how it feels that I am before a blank canvas, and I can make it look however we want to.

We are still through this deschooling phase, but I am not sure whether it is X or I that still needs it the most.  Deschooling is a weird phase.  It is like meeting somebody that you have known forever in a brand new light, showing new aspect of this person.  It is like starting anew, and getting to know each other again, all while trying to undo and unthink what you have been taught all your life about school and learning.
 It is fun, it is weird, it is hard, but it is worth it.

I started feeling adrift though.  The days were so much different one from another while we were trying to catch our wind, and this is something I cannot live with.  So the thing we have been working the most on lately is rhythm.  I have always believed in the necessity of rhythm, and I also know how X is in dire need of it.  I thought this would somehow appear into our days after a few days of homeschooling/descooling, but it did not, and truthfully, it made me feel anxious, and so did X.    I never knew how the day was going to go, or what way we would take, and so at some point, I decided that putting a rhythm to our days was mandatory.
It feel a LOT better know.  For everybody.  Really.

Now that learning has taken its place in our day, it is happening.  At a new rhythm that I am not used to.  This type of learning is clearly new to me, but I am starting to see and experience it's beautiful sides.

X has told me yesterday that he didn't understand why we were not "working" in the morning (pointing to the cupboard of Montessori material I have available to him).  I asked him if he wanted to do something, and he promptly said NO.  I think he sees the importance of learning, but it is still imprinted in his head that learning should be boring and compulsory.  He quickly added that although he didn't like math and language, he loves drawing like we have been doing every day for a while.   Obviously his love of drawing was somehow shielded during the only school year he went though, and it is clearly  being fed by a new passion that I have never seen in him.  Educating through art is definitely on my mind lately, and in most of the books I am discovering or re-discovering with new eyes.

I think that we both need a bit more time deschooling, but we are both getting there.

The light table

I have had so many questions about this, that I think I'll answer everything with a post dedicated to the subject.

The light table has come into our house a few months ago.  Light tables are not a material that is used or inspired by the Montessori philosophy, but rather in the Reggio Emilia one.

About a year ago, I was acquainted with pedagogy during the playful learning space e-course that I took.  I have been reading a lot on Reggio since, although I have to say that information is scarce about it.  I find that there is a lot of Montessori influence in the Reggio philosophy, but the big difference is in their use of art.  They uses what they call the 100 languages of children: art as a medium for learning.  M and E have 2 extremely artistic personalities.  And I know that Montessori was not a pedagogy based on self expression through many mediums, but rather through work.  My children are flourishing within the Montessori philosophy we are living by.  But I also wanted to incorporate more means of expressions, ones that my youngest were keen on using, and this is when I thought Reggio might be an interesting approach for us.  I have so much more to read and learn in Reggio, and I am definitely the best person to deeply explain the basis of this pedagogy.  If you want to find out more on Reggio, I suggest that you visit:

Mariah's blog: Mariah's approches are deeply influenced by Reggio as she had the chance to visit and live in Reggio school in Italy.

The site of Reggio education : which contains a mine of information about the schools

And other very good articles about the subject, this one being an excellent one

All of this to say, Reggio has been tainting our days for a while now.

Back to the light table.

I have no regrets getting this for the children.  They all use it very differently, but they all use it.  A LOT

X (the oldest)

My oldest is a mover.  A doer.  He needs to go, move, do, create, try, miss and try again.  He never stops.  Concentration is hard for him.  But when he plays on the table.  he is absorbed.  It really helps him stop and concentrate truly on what he does.   It amazes me every time.
On the table he build.  This is his passions: trucks, loaders, cranes, blocks, building...and so every time he has a chance, he sneaks to the atelier without E seeing him and he builds. (E loves to play with X on the table, but X likes to have a minute to do it alone sometimes)

M (4 yo):

She creates:

things that are beyond my imagination, or at least beyond what I thought she could do or rather that she could imagine.  She loves to use this table to experiment all sorts of things: paint, pattern making, window crayons, name it.  She tries things and looks at the result.  It seems to fill a desire to explore that she was able to express before.


E (18 months):

Oh, what can I say about him:

he has all sorts of sensorial experiences on there.  He seems more aroused to all activities I set up for him when they are on the table.  He gets more concentrated (or at least for a longer period of time) and he keep asking for more

most of his pouring, sorting, transferring activities are done on the table, and he actually set them up himself (!!)

he goes in the table, takes the jars he want to work with, sometimes get some cups to transfer from, sometimes spoons or other material that is available to him

and he just goes:

His absolute favorite activity on there are hands down the window markers

and those blocks are also very well loved

the colors are appealing to him.


FAQ:

• Where did I get my light table? : in my local teacher store.  But they are clearly starting to be available at more places, I am starting to see them everywhere.  But for a lot of information on light tables, panels, including how to do it yourself, I suggest that you go read Play at home moms's blog.  They are doing tremendously interesting stuff with all this!

• Do I only set activities up for this, or do I let my children use it as they want?  I do both.  But if I see they are having an inspiration for something, even if I had set something up for them, I try to encourage their creativity and join them in their work

• How is this Montessori?   It is not.  As I have been saying for a while, I have been influenced by other philosophy and I am trying to incorporate what feels right for us into our days.  But I like how this really helps my children express themselves, helps their creativity, and also they concentration.  X become so calm and settled when working on the table, he always tell me how he feels good after.  I think it brings him closer to the period of intense concentration M. Montessori talked about in the absorbent mind, and it helps him learn to concentrate to longer periods of time.   I am considering using this table to help him through academic material he has a harder time to go through.  I am sure it will be somewhat beneficial to him.

As you can see this is a topic that I am currently passionate about.  I hope to be able to share more about it soon.

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask, I will be delighted to answer them.