ElementaryProducts

SchoolArts Collection: Early Childhood

Discover diverse lessons based on theoretic foundations common to the Reggio Emilia approach and Choice-based and Play-based Art Education. Developed and taught by art teachers from around the country, these lessons reflect child-centered approaches to art education for young students that illustrate an exploratory approach to encountering artist’s tools, materials, and ways of working with an emphasis on discovery and creativity.

Beautiful Stuff: Learning with Found Materials

By Cathy Weisman Topal and Lella Gandini

Inspired by educational practices in Reggio Emilia, Italy, this book focuses on process rather than product. Chapters cover collecting and organizing materials, stimulating thoughts about design, reflecting upon and extending work, and more. Several sorting and categorizing activities are presented, along with individual and group projects and constructions. ISBN: 978-08719-2388-2, 105 pages, softcover, grades PreK–2

Beautiful Stuff from Nature: More Learning with Found Materials

Edited by Cathy Weisman Topal and Lella Gandini

Beautiful Stuff from Nature illustrates unique stories from teachers across North America who were challenged to explore their outdoor spaces with children to see where their interests lead. In these pages, you’ll encounter ordinary experiences made extraordinary through the teacher’s documentation and discover ideas for using natural materials to enrich your classroom, engage your students, and build on initial explorations. ISBN: 978-16152-8678-2, 127 pages, softcover, grades PreK–5

Thinking with a Line

By Cathy Weisman Topal

Inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach and by the work of Friedrich Froebel, this teacher’s guide offers strategies for teaching basic printmaking.

Teachers and students of all ages delight in discovering that with a little piece of cardboard and some paint they can print a multitude of linear structures — shapes, letters, alphabets, signs & posters, patterns, designs, buildings and architectural forms, skeletons, machines, and more… This innovative approach provides an effective and developmentally appropriate approach for increasing visual learning, motor skills, language development, and critical thinking using the basic art element, line. ISBN: 978-08719-2714-9, 80 pages, softcover, grades PreK–6

Insights and Inspirations from Reggio Emilia

Edited by Lella Gandini, Susan Etheredge, and Lynn Hill

Insights and Inspirations from Reggio Emilia captures and celebrates 30 years of the Reggio Emilia innovative presence and inspiration in North American early childhood educational thought and practice.

It is a narrative in word and image, representing the voices of teachers, scholars, and policy makers whose professional philosophies and practices have been changed by their encounters with the philosophy and practices of Reggio.

These signs of gratitude honor first and foremost the legacy of Loris Malaguzzi, who developed and constructed with collaborators and teachers what is now known around the world as the Reggio Emilia approach.

These signs honor as well his colleagues who are continuing to develop his philosophy using novel avenues fully in harmony with his dynamic view of exploring new ways and new sources of learning and relationship. ISBN: 978-08719-2894-8, 224 pages, softcover, grades PreK–5

The Hundred Languages in Ministories

Forward by Carla Rinaldi. Introduction by Amelia Gambetti and Lella Gandini. Translated by Lella Gandini and Leslie Morrow.

In The Hundred Languages in Ministories, we can finally observe the timeless, extraordinary stories first seen in the Italian edition of The Hundred Languages of Children, as Loris Malaguzzi originally intended.

These ministories offer messages of a positive culture of childhood. Educators can observe how an interactive education prepares children to become active participants in their learning in the 21st century. We can also observe the attentiveness and competency of teachers as they construct meaningful experiences with the children. Children are the inquirers, supported by the teachers with time, space and many engaging materials. ISBN: 978-16152-8404-7, 102 pages, softcover, grades PreK–5

Documenting Children’s Meaning

By Jason Avery, Karyn Callaghan, and Carol Anne Wien. Forward by Lella Gandini.

The amazing and complex work of children’s minds is made visible in this groundbreaking new book from Together for Families in Hamilton, Ontario. Inspired by the world-renowned Infant/Toddler and Preschool centers of Reggio Emilia, Italy, artist Jason Avery and his colleagues use photography, recording of children’s words and drawings, and reflective commentary to document the investigations and emergent concepts taking place in this urban drop-in center serving children and families from infancy onward. ISBN: 978-16152-8427-6, 190 pages, softcover, grades PreK–5