Authors: By Angela Mee Lee and Karyn Mendes
You’ve learned that the Reggio Emilia philosophy views your child as a capable researcher and the environment as the ‘Third Teacher.’ You might be wondering: How can I bring these principles into my own home without completely renovating my living space?
The great news is that adopting a Reggio-inspired home environment isn’t about expensive furniture or perfect organization; it’s primarily about shifting your perspective and being more intentional about how you present materials and interact with your toddler’s explorations.
Here are three key areas where you can start mirroring the powerful Reggio approach at home:
1. Curate the Space: Making the Environment the ‘Third Teacher’
The environment at home should be a calming, stimulating, and beautiful place that respects your child’s capability for deep focus.
To Foster Focus, Declutter, and Simplify
A fundamental step is to reduce visual and material clutter. When a space is simple and well-organized, it reduces sensory overwhelm and encourages focused engagement with the materials available.
- Actionable Tip: Rotate the collection of toys you have at home. Instead of having every single toy out, select a few meaningful materials and give them a tidy, attractive ‘home’ on the shelf or in a simple basket. A few inspiring items presented beautifully are more engaging than a mountain of plastic toys.
- Aesthetics Matter: Integrate natural light and neutral tones where possible. Consider using simple wooden shelves, warm lighting, and a few natural elements to create an atmosphere of respect and calm.
To Foster Independence, Ensure Easy Access
The environment should empower your child to make choices and feel competent.
- Open Access: Use low, open shelving so your child can easily see and access their own toys, books, and art supplies. This simple change promotes independence and self-directed choice, reinforcing the Reggio image of the Child as capable.
- Designated Work Areas: Create a small, accessible area dedicated to creative work (an atelier at home!). Ensure materials like paper, scissors, or simple drawing tools are always available for spontaneous projects.
To Foster Respect for the Environment, Include Natural Materials
Reggio classrooms prioritize natural elements and materials that encourage sensory exploration.
- Bring the Outdoors In: Incorporate natural elements—a bowl of interesting stones or shells, small potted plants, gathered sticks, or leaves—into play areas. This integrates the tactile and sensory experiences of the outside world into the home.
- The Power of Real Tools: If appropriate for their age, offer children real, functional items, like a small whisk, a child-safe knife for cutting soft food, or actual watercolor paints, rather than only plastic imitations. This shows your respect for toddlers as capable individuals.
2. Focus on The Process: Honoring ‘The Researcher’
In the Reggio approach, the journey of discovery is more important than the final outcome. Your role is to support this exploration.
Offer Open-Ended Materials (‘Loose Parts’)
These are the building blocks of creative thinking. Open-ended materials don’t have a prescribed use, allowing children to impose their own meaning.
Practical Materials: Focus on items like wooden blocks, water, sand, clay, simple cardboard boxes, and fabric scraps. These are your essential ‘loose parts.’
Limit Prescribed Toys: Limit the number of battery-operated or highly prescriptive toys that dictate how a child should play. Open-ended materials invite the ‘Hundred Languages’ of expression—building, designing, imagining, and theorizing.
Observe Your Child and Follow Their Lead
The curriculum in a Reggio setting is emergent—it evolves based on the children’s deep interests. Apply this approach at home.
- Observe and Respond: Pay close attention to your child’s current fascination. If they become captivated by how shadows work, you don’t need a lesson plan. Instead, provide materials that support this interest: a flashlight, translucent paper, or mirrors. If they love mixing colors at dinner, offer high-quality, accessible paints the next day.
- The Principle in Practice: Their current interest (shadows, colors, textures) is the curriculum. By responding to their wonderings, you validate their curiosity and teach them that their ideas matter.
Listen to Your Child and Interact Intentionally
Your language is a critical tool for facilitating deep thought. Avoid quick praise or questions that demand a single right answer.
- Shift Your Questions: Instead of asking, “What is that?” or giving value judgments like, “That’s not right,” ask open-ended questions that encourage hypothesizing, reflection, and deeper thought:
- “Tell me your idea?”
- “What do you think will happen if you add more water?”
- “How does this soft fabric feel different from the rock?”
- The Art of Listening: Take the time to listen to their full response. A powerful technique is to paraphrase what you heard: “Ah, I hear you saying that the paint got sticky when you added the sand! That’s an interesting discovery.” This delights your child, confirms you are listening, and invites them to explain more, furthering their own self-reflection.
3. Document and Be a Co-Learner: Making Thinking Visible
Documentation is how the learning process is valued and made visible. You can do this simply at home.
Display the Process, Not Just the Product
The final product (the drawing, the tower) is only a fraction of the learning. Focus on showing the journey.
- Display Documentation: Instead of only hanging the ‘best’ drawing, hang a series of pictures that show your child working on a project over several days, along with a note or quote about what they were thinking or saying. You can even create a simple ‘Learning Wall’ or scrapbook.
- The Power of Memory: This documentation helps your child see their own progress, reinforces the value of their effort, and creates a powerful shared family memory of their discovery.
Be a Genuine Co-Learner
The Reggio educator is not a lecturer but a researcher alongside the child. Adopt this role at home.
- Join the Exploration: Participate in their play or project without taking over. Show genuine curiosity.
- Model Wonder: Say things like, “Wow, I wonder why the block keeps falling there?” or “Let’s test your idea!” This models the value of learning and reinforces that the parent is a partner in the learning relationship, not just an authority figure.
By making these simple shifts—from focusing on the final product to embracing the process, and from a cluttered space to a curated studio—you honor your child’s huge potential and turn your home into a dynamic, beautiful, and deeply engaging place of discovery.
