Increasingly known, studied, and practiced worldwide, Reggio’s pedagogy aims to make children autonomous and happy to explore and learn. It is based on fundamental principles and essential themes such as nature, citizenship, expression in multiple forms, or the link to art.
What is the Reggio Emilia approach? By what professional attitudes should it be translated within its structure? How to set up a Reggio nursery? In this guide, you will find several essential notions to understand this pedagogy and how to implement it.
Reggio activities to promote the child's autonomy
What is Reggio’s pedagogy?
What is Reggio Emilia?
Developed in Italy in the city of Reggio Emilia by Loris Malaguzzi, a former teacher, Reggio’s pedagogy is based on experiments, discoveries, explorations, and feelings of children.
Every child is naturally creative and intelligent. He is born with many resources and can learn, communicate, and love... From an early age, he seeks to apprehend and understand the world around him. As adults, we must listen to him and accompany him on this path, encouraging his freedom so that he expresses his full potential.
This approach is based on a humanistic vision of the human being and a democratic idea of society. It thus advocates the absence of hierarchy in the childcare structures concerned and concerted leadership by educators and parents.
What is the difference with Montessori?
In some respects, Reggio and Montessori pedagogies have points of resemblance. However, there are crucial differences between these approaches, especially for professionals.
The most crucial difference is the sense of community. In the Reggio approach, families and the supervisory team are partners throughout the educational process. They are a constantly communicating learning community, working together and supporting each other.
The classroom or nursery environment in Reggio pedagogy is another distinction with the Montessori method. In the Reggio approach, the environment where children evolve is considered as an accompanist, a "third teacher.”
Example of the layout of a nursery Reggio Emilia
Reggio pedagogy: foundation and themes
The main principles of the Reggio approach
- The child has the right to be listened to, express himself, participate, and be integrated. Within the group, he is recognized as a unique being.
- The child is considered entirely, with his potential, experience, creativity, and search for meaning.
- The accompanying persons allow the child to explore different languages to express himself. Expression in all forms is encouraged: artistic, physical, linguistic, emotional...
- The child is considered competent, inventive, and an actor in their development.
- Everyone's learning pace is respected.
- Through his relationship with the child, the adult is a source of learning. He invites, accompanies, and encourages.
- Nature occupies an essential place and is at the heart of children's learning and discoveries.
- The awakening of the five senses is essential in the development of children.
- The child is accompanied towards autonomy through experimentation while respecting his faculties and rhythm.
- Social relationships and harmonious interactions within the group are encouraged.
- Spatial planning is a source of discovery, exploration, and learning.
The essential themes
- Art workshops
In the Reggio approach, the relationship with art is carried out by organizing artistic workshops. Various artists are permanently present in Reggio nurseries and schools: dancers, visual artists, graphic designers... These are not workshops to learn techniques but places for creative projects that aim to promote another vision of the world in the child. - Creativity and expression. To meet the communication needs of children, Reggio pedagogy strives to provide them with various supports and thus promote expression
In all its forms: musical, physical, linguistic, artistic... The role of the teacher or supervisory staff is to nourish the expression and creativity of the child and to allow him to express his desires, feelings, and experiences ... - The place of the child in the city. The child, whatever his age, is considered in Reggio Emilia as a citizen with rights and able to participate in the city’s life. He is listened to as an intelligent being, integrated into the educational community, and in contact with his family and the city as a citizen.
- Nature as a learning medium. The Reggio approach places nature as the first place of learning and discovery. This method is based on the observation of nature, its exploration, and its use as a pedagogical support for experimentation and discovery of the world. Natural materials are privileged because they stimulate the five senses and develop the child's creativity. The Reggio method, therefore, promotes a pedagogy of nature and by nature.
Nursery, kindergarten: Reggio in practice
Professional attitudes
One of the main principles of Reggio’s pedagogy is to place the child as an actor in his learning. The adult’s role is not to direct him but to support his experiments and discoveries. Learning is done in small groups in a modular space allowing free play. The adult is there to accompany the questions, encourage the exploration of hypotheses, and allow errors and their resolution ...
In the Reggio approach, "provocation" refers to a situation that arouses the child’s curiosity and invites him to experiment, learn, and express himself. It is an open proposal, which the child grasps as he wishes. The adult is supportive of the child's creativity and does not lead: he lets himself be guided by the way the child seizes the situation and the way he exploits it.
Observation and documentation are essential in Reggio’s pedagogy, which places the educator as a true "researcher.” Observation is the starting point for setting up projects. It makes the child’s learning process visible and allows a better understanding of his faculties, needs, and limits... Interpretation and documentation then guide the work.
The Reggio layout
The environment becomes a resource-rich place of exploration, where children experiment, discover, and learn at their own pace and according to their personality. Children can express themselves using Loris Malaguzzi's "100 languages". Considered the "third teacher,” the space that welcomes children must be rich, warm, aesthetic, and accommodation.
Given the importance of nature in Reggio Emilia’s pedagogy, the nursery or school must have an outdoor space. The exterior supports experimentation and the awakening of the senses: through the observation of natural materials, plants, and animals...
Reggio equipment
Reggio equipment is selected for its aesthetic and sensory qualities, inviting exploration and stimulating curiosity. The use of natural materials and wood products is recommended. The same goes for "open" material, which can evolve as the child develops and imagines.
A magical object that reverses images, modifies scales, and plays with perspectives: the mirror is very present in Reggio Emilia layouts. On the wall, on the ceiling, in suspension, on the floor, it allows us to observe the reflections, to apprehend the symmetries, and to play on them with water, objects, painting ...
Collected in nature over the seasons, the "loose parts" are little things the child can manipulate and integrate into his creative activities. It can be pebbles, branches, gemstones, shells, etc., that vary throughout the year. The provision of a light table promotes their observation!
In the Reggio approach, teaching materials and a professional attitude are essential.
HABA accompanies Reggio nurseries
Products in support of Reggio pedagogy
Anxious to meet current pedagogical challenges, HABA develops products in support of methods developed by renowned pedagogues, including the Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Froebel, or Loczy approaches.
Developed with specialists in the Reggio approach, our facilities and product respect its educational values. In response to the main principles of this method, HABA offers equipment that promotes the child’s autonomy and expression in all its forms, including artistic.
The spaces we design maintain the link with nature, an essential theme in Reggio pedagogy, primarily through natural and warm materials and outdoor equipment to create miniature gardens or activities related to the discovery of the environment.
Facilities designed for children's development
The teaching method proposed by the Reggio approach is based on the belief that every child is naturally creative and intelligent. It uses its many resources to develop through exploration, experimentation, and discovery. At HABA, our role is to accompany the child, listen to his feelings, encourage his freedom and provide him with an environment conducive to expressing his full potential.
We aim to design layouts, games, and toys to help children become autonomous, conscious, and creative. Our products are designed to promote their senses' awakening, their abilities' development, and their openness to the world.
Many pedagogies, including Reggio, include respect for the child’s rhythm among their firm values. With this in mind, the products designed by HABA offer stimuli adapted to each stage of development and the learning faculties of each child. Designed in collaboration with early childhood pedagogy experts, they respond to the specific learning needs of toddlers.