HOW WE EXPRESS OURSELVES: Storie Di Grafica

Children learn about the world by exploring it through the body and the senses, to satisfy motor, sensory, and emotional needs, in a joyful and imaginatively rich process. The first signs they trace in materials — on the sand, in the mud, on the wall — are all manifestations of a natural propensity to learn, supported by great curiosity and interest. Mind and body work in synergy. Gradually, the first random signs and the first scribbles transform into more complex shapes and designs: all children experience this process through lines, dots, shapes, and movements, creating increasingly complex graphic compositions on paper and thus continuing to explore the world and themselves, both from a cognitive and emotional point of view.

“The 100 languages” is the metaphor of each child who is capable of building and inventing their own ideas and who is the builder and inventor of their own culture. Children immediately enter the complexity of the world and of existence. Children love to confront each other, make predictions, and understand, but they also know how to welcome and make different points of view on their own. A child, as Loris Malaguzzi said in the 100 languages poem, does not know and does not want to separate their head from their body. The 100 languages are free entrances to knowledge, they are not hierarchical. As educators we must allow children these languages to open their minds.