Blue House nursery is one of the few Reggio Emilio inspired preschools in Singapore and it is also where I first got to learn about this approach. It doesn't follow a strict or sequenced curriculum as teachers follow the children's interests and allow the child to lead.This education emphasize on the formation of creative intelligence, free thought, trust, and learning through interactions with their parents, teachers and their environment. It builds on the culture that respect childhood and the development of the child's ability to be independent, explore freely and communicate their ideas.
Reggio Emilio view the environment as a living organism which the children respect, learn and share a relationship with. Therefore the layout, the design, the arrangements of objects and materials used are all specially selected to encourage learning, discoveries and problems solving.
Today Reagan and I made time to drop by the school to join their Baby & Toddler Discovery Program at the school's atelier.
I haven't seen a more spacious and pretty classroom like this. The school really made an effort to turn this room into a very comfortable and conducive environment for babies learning and exploring with their parents. In fact, this is the kind of room and ambiance I would enjoy an afternoon away chilling with my girlfriends with some cakes and wine haha!
Overall, the atelier is a spacious room with a few different stations that provides different learning activities or stimulating objects that are either recycled or easily found in a household. The babies are free to explore around the classroom with their parent. In the mid of the class, the teacher will gather all the children together to sing some songs, then they are again free to explore the room and lastly when time's up, everyone gathers again for bubbles time.
We reached the school 25 minutes early and so we got ourselves comfortable on the sofa and I read him some children books from the bookshelves.
When he entered the atelier, he couldn't even wait for me to put on the socks and crawled away by himself to explore one of the stations. Now Reagan is at the stage of yearning to touch , observe and explore anything he can lay his hands on. Especially things that can move or things that he can make sounds with.
He enjoys the station with all the metal and shiny objects and kept clanking the cup and pot together to produce noises, which somehow kinda amused him.
He also love the water play, where toy animals are thrown into the icy coloured water and children are encouraged to pick them out with their hands or with the scoop provided.
This trial class provides us a good experience understanding the Reggio Emilio style of learning. There was not much of a teaching involved from the teachers since it is basically a child-led exploration program. I think he did enjoy himself since there is totally no restriction for him to crawl around and touch everything in sight. However I didn't sign him up on the spot for the package , mainly due to the long traveling distance from my home to the school and also of course the hefty course fees! With just one hour of exploration and not much of " structured lesson plan" involved, I'm unsure whether it really justifies the cost. I guess I'm still one of those typical Asian moms that are more willing to pay for class that focus on academic as well and has a proper curriculum, compare to one that base on mainly just free-play and exploration. And to prove my point, Reagan and I were the only Asians present right from the time we stepped into the school.
I believe Asian or Singaporean parents are more willing to pay for academic schools like Kumon, Mindchamps, Adam khoo etc... and probably not on a program that focus on total free-play. Well, anyway baby Reagan gets to play everyday! And from the trial class, I've gotten some ideas on how to provide him the same Reggio Emilio approach at home, especially the ideas on turning recycled items into certain fun activities for him. I'm sure he would enjoy it the same :)
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