Reggio Emilia, Italy (Tour + Ideas)

REGGIO, ITALY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just realized that I s-t-i-l-l have oodles of photos of my field trip day through Reggio that have never made it to the light of day. It seems a fitting way to conclude the year... remembering highlights from this spring.
A day of delight! A dream come true!! Pinch me!!! A day in: REGGIO!!

There's a Three Stooges sort-of-Debbie Clement story about my day in Reggio and our getting seperated and totally lost from the caravan of vehicles playing crack-the-whip in European traffic circles. Happy ending!! 

We eventually arrived at the pre-arranged school, late and crazed, but in the nick-of-time for my performance!!

Here's what the drive looked like from Vicenza to Reggio... rolling hills, farms, small villages.

Maybe I need to back up, just a tad, for all you newbies just landing here for the very first time. WELCOME!! I'm a "music-lady" evolved into a picture book author + illustrator. Have guitar will travel.

My newest picture book is entitled "Red, White and Blue" and is a patriotic tribute to our country based on a song I wrote immediately after 9-11. As a result of my book, I was invited to Europe to tour four US Army bases across Germany + Italy. The special tour was arranged to sing with the children of our troops stationed abroad and present staff development workshops. 

Our base outside of Vicenza Italy is about 90 minutes from Reggio. Arlana Young, the brilliant organizer of my tour was able to create an opportunity for her staff + MOI to tour two sites in Reggio -- in exchange for my presenting a concert for the Italian children.... there ya have it, the Reader's Digest version!

My first misconception about 'Reggio' was my initial thinking over a decade ago, when I first began hearing the phrase 'in the Reggio style' was that Reggio was A school, A building. Quite some time ago I learned that it was more of an 'approach' that originated in Reggio Emilia. What I still didn't realize until getting to Italy, is that Reggio is not A village, but rather its A PROVINCE -- as in an entire geographic region! The two centers, that we toured and observed, were over an hour apart from each other. REGGIO is spread out -- much broader geographically than I realized until our actual arrival. Yes. ARTS!! Yes. COMMUNITY!! Yes. Adult-Dedicated Artists in the midst of children. YES!! REGGIO!!!

      
Let's start with our arrival to the brand new building of the state-run child care program.

This AWESOME fence with the bright colored pencils greeted us bordering the sidewalk up to the entrance.
I had to peek thru the little gap in the fence to grab the pic of the playground.
Everything: brand sparkling, shiny + new.

Here's the towering + brilliant entry-way. Two stories high.

Covered with professional enlargements of original children's drawings.
I just LUV LUV LUV that they have the original child's drawing taped right to the wall!! 

Can you spot the child's drawing taped to the wall? (It's just to the lower right of the big painted heart.)

I have a previous post with several other additional examples of the children's art, turned into two story murals...... click back here to see the amazing school bus and others.


Here's another example that hadn't been in the previous post.
This is the original drawing, taped to the wall -- right beside the enlargement.  

These paintings are 'subtle' in their coloration, but large in their presentation!

Here's a brighter selection:

Taking the speedie-quick-time tour (since we were so late, since we were so lost)

the first thing that I noticed in the hallways, was the sheer number of photos of the children engaged in a variety of activities.... and ALWAYS labeled!!!

I get the words: giochi, diversi, materiali, farina + luminosa. I get their engagement!!!

These are obviously photos of little ones exploring at a light table.
This collage of photos was under glass in a display case. 

Don't ya just LUV how everything is labeled?
Even if you can't read or understand Italian, it's awesome -- isn't it!

Isn't farina like grainy cream-of-wheat? Look how amazing the work!

As you might imagine, I was keen on taking as many photographs as possible of the children's artwork on display. What you are seeing is reflective of a spring day, in April, of the work created by wee-wonders up thru early school aged students. I LUV how they have so many collage pieces. These next 'shape people' are full of up-cycled bits and bobs of stuff. They translate easily.




These glorious nature-walk collages were presented in box lids -- creating a shadow-box and frame all in one. 



Our visit was right before Easter and there were numerous 'Easter Egg' collaborations. This one was huge -- from floor to ceiling and displayed on the hallway wall bulletin board. 

Reggio Emilia Spring Bulletin Board of Happy Scraps

I think this is going to take several more days to unwind all of the rest of the pictures and my observations from one incredible day.... stay tuned. I'll stay focused on Reggio for the next couple of blog installments. Focus! 

Prego!! {Prego: my one Italian vocabulary word which indeed means 'you're welcome' and was the singular most repeated word we heard in our ten days in Italy} 


In the meantime you're welcome to dig through the ten earlier posts already cataloged from this spring by clicking right here. Use the tag REGGIO EMILIA and you can root through all 18 posts. I've attempted to give you the highlights in this post, but if you're really interested you'll want to dig a little deeper. Not to be missed are the toddler murals with photos embedded within the open ended paintings and the 'sensory' garden. 

-- Debbie -- 

I have included this post in the Link-up of all things 'light-box' at Teach Preschool.