visual arts in early childhood

Every child, like every human being, is the constructor of knowledges, competencies, and autonomies. The process of learning privileges research strategies, exchange and discussion, and participating with others. At IAA we provide our children to learn by discovery, what does this mean? We present a scenario which will curiosity, the response to that is immediate provocation, the instrinsic desire of the human discovery therefore"learning". Every child's nature is to discover, to find out "what is that" "what it is for?" "how does it work?" "what can I make with it?". Our ECC is based experimental workshops, with particularly attention towards the areas of motor skills, and the languages of expression. Our inspiration is the Reggio Emilia Approach, making children active protagonists of their growing processes, which develops ownership, autonomy leading them to acknowledge who they are.

The Reggio Emilia Approach® is an educational philosophy based on the image of a child with strong potentialities for development and a subject with rights, who learns through the hundred languages belonging to all human beings, and grows in relations with others.

“To make a lovable school, industrious, inventive, liveable, documentable and communicable, a place of research, learning, re-cognition and reflection, where children, teachers and families feel well - is our point of arrival.”

Loris Malaguzzi

Who is Loris Malaguzzi?

Loris Malaguzzi was born in Correggio on 23 February 1920. He grew up in Reggio Emilia where he attended the Istituto Magistrale secondary school, and graduated from Urbino University with a degree in pedagogy in 1946. During the war he worked in elementary and middle schools in Reggio Emilia. At the end of 1946 Malaguzzi was first a teacher and then Director at the Convitto Scuola della Rinascita in Rivaltella, Reggio Emilia. Through the Convitto school Malaguzzi began to weave relations with international pedagogy. His reading was wide and varied, and not only in the field of pedagogy. Italy was finally opening up to international culture after the years, where he participated in the first courses on Educational Psychology. In the early 1960s Malaguzzi began trying out and testing his ideas where Malaguzzi contributed to making the schools places of experimentation and innovation.

In 1981 Malaguzzi had the idea for the exhibition If the eye leaps over the wall. Hypotheses for a pedagogy of vision (renamed the Hundred Languages of Children – Narrative of the Possible in 1987). The exhibition was a synthesis of ideas, thinking and experimentation from municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools and contributed to building an extensive structured network of international relations. In 1990 Malaguzzi conceived personally oversaw the development of an important international conference, Who am I Then? Tell me that first (Alice) leading us to the thought that, our children, our young humans gain ownership of their existence by the realization of of who they are and what is their role in society. That will be the foundation of their self-confidence getting them ready to become autonomus, creative problem-solvers global citizens.

Loris Malaguzzi wrote a poem which describes exactly what the Reggio Emilia Approach is based on:

100 languages

NO WAY. THE HUNDRED IS THERE.

The child

is made of one hundred.

The child has

a hundred languages

a hundred hands

a hundred thoughts

a hundred ways of thinking

of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred

ways of listening

of marveling of loving

a hundred joys

for singing and understanding

a hundred worlds

to discover

a hundred worlds

to invent

a hundred worlds

to dream.

The child has

a hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred hundred more)

but they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture

separate the head from the body.

They tell the child:

to think without hands

to do without head

to listen and not to speak

to understand without joy

to love and to marvel

only at Easter and Christmas.

They tell the child:

to discover the world already there

and of the hundred

they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:

that work and play

reality and fantasy

science and imagination

sky and earth

reason and dream

are things

that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child

that the hundred is not there.

The child says:

No way. The hundred is there.

Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)

For further reading please go to:

www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/

These are some of the activities with which we will assemble the scenarios where our artists will develop their learning:

• Create paintings that demonstrate personal observations about a place.
• Experiment with mixing colors creating abstraction.
• Exprerience various ways that paints and brushes can use used: - Paint: thick, think - Strokes: long, short, curved - Colors: light, dark, dull, bright - Shapes: big, small, layered
• Create drawings that experiment with different tools such as oil pastels, pencils, colored pencils, and crayons.
• Create prints by stamping objects or sponges with tempera paints.
• Construct a collage using paper and found objects. Experiment with: - Placement of shapes - Color - Pre-cut and torn paper - Composition - Textured materials - Layering
• Sculpt and carve into molding clay. Experiment with: - Pinch - Coil - Texture - Add and subtract
• Experiment with fiber art using textured fabric and string or yarn.
• Discover the difference of line vs. shape, color vs. texture, shape vs. size by observation of these elements
• Identify primary, light, and dark colors.
• Identify varied lines, geometric shapes, textures, types of space, size.
• Listen to a read-aloud a famous artist.
• Look at a work by a famous artist.
• Discover and indentify proportions through visual examples (house to mouse).
• Observe community sites on a virtual neighborhood walk (or school walk) and note: - Colors - Buildings - Vehicles - Signs - People
• Express verbally about various personal art experiences.
• Explore the customs and traditions of various cultures, artists and short insertions of art history in class content.
• Identify types of art found in daily life.
• Create puppets to be used in storytelling or in a group share