Why We Are Inspired by Reggio Emilia

Keeping the Wonder Alive in Our Youngest Learners

Walk into our preschool classroom at Hampstead Academy, and you may notice that learning looks a little different.

Children are moving, building, talking, drawing, experimenting, negotiating, wondering, and creating. You may see a small group gathered around an interesting discovery, a child explaining an idea to a teacher, or several children working together to solve a problem. The walls and learning spaces tell stories of investigations in progress rather than simply displaying identical finished products.

What you are seeing is intentional.

At Hampstead Academy, we combine the inspiration of the Reggio Emilia philosophy with authentic inquiry and experiential learning. We believe that even our youngest children are capable thinkers with important ideas, theories, questions, and perspectives of their own.

Our job is not to rush them toward predetermined answers.

Our job is to keep the wonder alive.

Children Are Capable, Curious Learners

One of the ideas we value most from Reggio Emilia is its image of the child as capable, curious, and competent.

Three- and four-year-olds arrive at school already trying to make sense of their world. They ask questions constantly. They experiment. They notice patterns. They build theories, test them, change their minds, and try again.

That is the beginning of authentic inquiry.

Rather than separating “play” from “learning,” we recognize that purposeful play provides young children with extraordinary opportunities to develop language, mathematical thinking, scientific reasoning, creativity, collaboration, persistence, and problem-solving.

Play-based learning is not learning without intention or academic depth. When thoughtfully facilitated by skilled teachers, it can be one of the most intellectually rich ways for young children to learn.

What Does a Reggio-Inspired Classroom Look Like?

Several principles of Reggio Emilia strongly influence our Early Childhood program.

The Child as an Active Participant. Children do not simply receive information from adults. They investigate, make choices, develop ideas, ask questions, and contribute to the direction of their learning.

The Environment as the Third Teacher. Our classrooms and campus are intentionally designed to provoke curiosity. Open-ended materials, natural elements, light, art materials, building materials, outdoor spaces, and interesting objects invite children to explore possibilities rather than follow a single prescribed path.

The Teacher as Researcher and Guide. Our teachers observe closely, listen carefully, document children's thinking, and ask questions that encourage deeper investigation. They introduce materials and experiences that help children extend their thinking without taking ownership of the discovery away from them.

Learning Made Visible. Photographs, children's words, drawings, models, observations, and other forms of documentation help teachers and children revisit their thinking. Documentation also allows families to see not simply what their children made, but how their thinking developed along the way.

Collaboration. Learning is social. Children share theories, encounter different perspectives, negotiate ideas, solve problems together, and discover that another person's thinking can change their own.

Long-Term Inquiry. Instead of moving rapidly from one disconnected topic to another, children have opportunities to investigate meaningful questions over time. An interesting observation today might become tomorrow's experiment and eventually grow into a much larger project.

Check out this video showcasing our students' work, thoughtfully inspired by Reggio Emilia approach.

Hampstead Academy's Pre-K Program

The Hundred Languages of Children

Another Reggio Emilia idea that strongly resonates with us is that children have many ways of communicating and making meaning.

A child may explain an idea through words, but also through paint, clay, construction, dramatic play, movement, music, drawing, storytelling, or the natural world.

These different forms of expression are not simply enrichment added after the “real learning” is finished. They are ways of thinking and learning.

This is one reason the arts, movement, music, outdoor experiences, and creative materials are such important parts of our Early Childhood experience.

Inquiry Begins With a Big Question

This fall, learning across Hampstead Academy is connected by one schoolwide driving question:

How can we understand change—and what can change teach us?

Every age group can enter this question differently.

For our multi-age preschool classroom, our three- and four-year-old Supernovas will begin by investigating something children encounter every day but that holds almost endless possibilities for discovery:

Light.

What happens to light when something gets in its way?

Why does a shadow move?

Can we make a shadow bigger or smaller?

What happens when light shines through different materials?

Can light change color?

Can we change light?

These questions do not need to begin on a worksheet. They can begin with a flashlight, a sunny window, a prism, a mirror, a shadow on the playground, or something a child suddenly notices and wants to understand.

From there, teachers listen.

They observe what fascinates the children. They introduce materials and provocations. They ask questions. Children make predictions, test ideas, create representations, talk with one another, and revisit what they previously believed.

And the inquiry grows.

We do not know exactly where the Supernovas' investigation of light will lead this trimester—and that is an important part of authentic inquiry. Teachers provide intentional academic direction and thoughtfully designed experiences while remaining responsive to the questions and discoveries that emerge from the children themselves.

What Are They Really Learning?

A preschooler experimenting with light and shadow may appear to simply be playing with a flashlight.

Look more closely.

That child may be investigating cause and effect, making predictions, comparing size and distance, developing spatial reasoning, discovering properties of materials, learning new vocabulary, communicating an observation, collaborating with a friend, documenting a discovery through art, and changing an original theory based on new evidence.

Those are significant intellectual habits.

More importantly, the child is beginning to develop a powerful understanding:

I can figure things out.

That sense of agency matters enormously.

We want children to leave an investigation with knowledge, but we also want them to leave with curiosity, confidence, persistence, and an eagerness to ask the next question.

Preparing Children for What Comes Next

The principles we draw from Reggio Emilia fit naturally within Hampstead Academy's broader educational philosophy.

As children grow, the materials, questions, academic expectations, and sophistication of their projects change. The underlying habits remain: observe closely, ask meaningful questions, investigate possibilities, collaborate with others, create, reflect, revise, and communicate what you have discovered.

In preschool, those habits may begin while chasing a shadow across the playground.

Years later, those same habits become the foundation for scientific investigation, mathematical problem-solving, thoughtful writing, creative design, and complex project-based learning.

That is why we believe early childhood education should be about much more than preparing children for the next grade.

It should help children develop a relationship with learning itself.

At Hampstead Academy, we want our youngest learners to enter school believing that their ideas matter, their questions are worth pursuing, and the world is an endlessly interesting place to explore.

We want to keep the wonder alive.