Preschool

The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IB-PYP) nurtures and develops young students as caring, active participants in a lifelong journey of learning. The Reggio Emilia approach gives children a wide variety of educational opportunities that encourage self-expression, communication, problem solving, and logical thinking. Both recognize learners as active participants in their own learning. Here are two examples of IB and Reggio in action in our Preschool classes.

The Grandi Arancioni children explored the relationship and interaction between their feet and the multiple languages. In particular, some of them discovered that feet and light, when combined, open up new possibilities. From here a journey into the hundred languages began, in which children used their imagination and narrative thinking, experimented with the senses, and expressed themselves through drawing and using materials as a language.

Light is an essential presence in our life and a very fascinating element for children: it can focus and change points of view and transform the vision of adults and children. The sensory experience had multiple connotations: it was an opportunity to explore different materials and their specific characteristics through the feet sensation. It also supported relationships through the support and mutual help needed to walk on some materials.

The graphics allowed a more realistic study of the feet, from counting toes to the reflection of the shape of their feet, supporting logical-mathematical skills.

To finalize the learning of these skills, we introduced wooden materials of different shapes and sizes to recreate the feet.

In Grandissimi Azzurri parents were invited to have a small group experience in our atelier, a special place where children explore different ways of expression.

In particular, parents, together with their children, experienced the language of graphics, through the technique of ‘’indagine dal vero”. This approach, which comes from the Reggio Emilia way of teaching, requires that the graphic experience begins long before holding the pencil. In this way, drawing is not reduced to representing an object on the sheet, but rather becomes an opportunity to observe and grasp the details, to re-interpret what we see, to transform it into something new and unique.