What is the Reggio Approach?

As an artist, I am interested integrating art into a Montessori classroom.

I have recently become aware and interested in the Reggio approach or

method. There are a few schools that combine the methods and have

an Artilier as part of their Montessori programs.

http://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/reggio/montessorijourney.html

(MacDonald Montessori Child Care combines programs with some compromises! )Here is an good article that explains Reggio and the Artilier:



This article discusses an early childhood program administrator's reflections on her visit to the preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. The following six themes are discussed: (1) teachers' respect for each child; (2) teachers' emphasis on relationships; (3) the importance of art as the medium chosen to represent children's thinking; (4) the critical role of communication; (5) the relaxed pace in the schools; and (6) the teachers' different roles. The article concludes with ideas and questions inspired by the visit that the administrator would like to share with colleagues in a gifted education environment.

"The graphic arts, broadly defined as any form of 
visual artistic representation, are their chosen media

to share with others what children are thinking,

doing, feeling, learning, and experiencing. They teach

children art techniques to give them tools to express

their ideas.

Being artistic and creative is highly valued in this

school culture. Large space is allocated to art

studios, called ateliers, for the school. Each

classroom has a small art studio, mini-atelier,

connected to it where art materials are plentiful and

accessible to the children. Aesthetically pleasing

environments are designed purposefully. The ateliers

in each school are filled with recyclable materials

(e.g., glass beads, pipes, sockets, ceramic pieces)

and natural elements (e.g., rocks, stones, beans,

barley, seeds, seed pods, dried flowers). All of the

materials are laid out aesthetically on open shelves

and in clear containers, creating hues of colors to

behold. In the bathrooms, there are glass containers

of colored water...mobiles hang from the

ceilings with materials that reflect light such as

clear beads, tin foil, and coins. Dividers are made

out of transparent materials including acetate murals,

strings of beads, and low, see-through shelves.

Furniture provides space to work at all levels,

including tables and chairs that are at adult heights.

Children have high stools to sit at the high tables

and small chairs to sit at the low ones. The

difference in levels is aesthetically pleasing.

The children's work in progress is left out,

reflecting active and ongoing engagement. Teachers

carefully lay out materials for the next day's choices

of activities. Materials are chosen thoughtfully. In

one room, I noticed the teacher in her mini-atelier

working with a small group of 4-year-olds. The

children were painting representations of flowers. The

teacher had premixed four shades of pink for the

children to use. No matter what the children did with

the paint, the colors were beautiful! I saw the

teacher put her hand on a student's hand to help him

wipe off the paintbrush so paint would not drip. I saw

a teacher go to another part of the room to get a

child who was engaged in another activity to come into

the mini-atelier to work on a clay representation of a

tree. It was something that she wanted him to do.

In another school, I saw large murals of colored

designs in different hues of color. One contained

oranges and yellows. Another was a mural with pinks

and purples; another contained blues and greens. The

atelierista told me that she mixed these colors for

children to "experiment with the pleasures of working

within hues of colors." There were signs on the wall

about how to mix colors. One board that was displayed

in the atelier explained in great detail all of the

ways one could mold clay to create spirals, circles,

rectangles, triangles, the sun, and crosses.

Many of the students' investigations were about

natural phenomena. I saw an ongoing study of trees.

While making clay representations of trees, the

classroom teacher helped children learn the technique

of using water and clay mixed to form a glue that held

other clay pieces together. The other teacher in the

same room showed children how to use a real leaf to

make an imprint of the veins onto a clay piece.

Children had many opportunities to learn, practice,

and apply techniques related to visual arts.

Their artistic representations were highly valued and

were the basic medium for the public to view their

work. I bought a book from one school that contained

children's drawings of trees and quotations about

their drawings. Many schools sell other artifacts,

sharing the children's work with the world...

 Artifacts include bookmarks, T-shirts,

sweatshirts, books telling the story of their

projects, and posters of children's drawings.

I saw beautiful mosaics at one school where the

atelierista specialized in both science and art and

had a particular passion for working with natural

materials. The mosaics were done on glass-covered

tables-not glued but carefully placed in a background

of small seeds. The texture was like sand. Each mosaic

could be done again and wiped away with a block to

smooth the palette. Children were carefully building

structures with stones, marble scraps, blocks, and

other materials while I was there. I observed children

explaining their building structures to all of the

other children under the teacher's direction. I was

most impressed with the atelierista's guidance of an

activity with an insect. He put a dead insect under a

large magnifying glass and projected the enlarged

image onto a video screen. He provided black markers

and white paper for the children to make an

observational drawing from the large screen image."

(The article goes on to discuss music here)

ECRP

Volume 3 Number 1

©The Author(s) 2001
Reflections and Impressions from Reggio Emilia:"It's Not about Art!"
Nancy B. Hertzog
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign