Reggio Emilia Inspired Preschool

The Scuola offers a Reggio Emilia inspired pre-school, a cultural immersion program taught entirely in Italian, for children 3 to 6 years of age.

Our Reggio Emilia inspired preschool is now located in the Pearl District
Scuola Italiana is pleased to announce the relocation and fall opening of our preschool in the Zimmerman Community Center located at 1542 NW 14th Ave (between Quimby & Raleigh) on the ground floor of the beautiful Ramona Apartments.

The new preschool location is open Monday – Wednesday from 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM and classes are taught by our native Italian teacher and published children’s author, Lara Carnovali. Before moving to the US to teach at Scuola Italiana, Lara spent seven years at an elementary school in Milan, Italy. Lara looks forward to sharing her love for Italian language and culture with all of her students! Children ages three to five years old are welcome.

Please join us at our Open House on September 11, 2011 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM. The Open house will showcase all of the classes offered at the scuola.

Meet our teachers, hear more about our programs, tour our new location or just stop by to say hi, we look forward to seeing you!

For more information about the open house, email administration@scuola.us

What is Reggio Emilia?
The Scuola’s preschool is taught entirely in Italian while immersing children in one of the most respected approaches to education worldwide.

Recent studies have shown that children with proficiency or exposure to a second language at an early age demonstrate superior problem-solving skills and enjoy better school performance.

The Reggio Emilia model is based on multi-sensory, child-directed learning. Founded in 1963 by Loris Malaguzzi, an Italian pedagogist in Reggio Emilia, a city in North Italy, this approach “fosters children’s intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation, including words, movements, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play and music, which leads children to surprising levels of communication, symbolic skills and creativity” (Edwards et al., 1993).

“Children have the right to use materials in order to discover and communicate what they know, understand, wonder about, question, feel and imagine. In this way, they make their thinking visible through their many natural languages.” (Bringing Reggio Emilia Home, Louise Boyd Cadwell, 1997.)

The Scuola Italiana di Portland is a member of NAREA (North American Reggio Emilia Alliance).

Preschool Program Description
The Scuola preschool, taught entirely in Italian, combines many different projects with a flexible planning style, encouraging our students to learn at their own pace on multilevels.

1. NATURE PROJECT:
How is the natural world changing each season? We discover how the natural world is changing through direct observations and taking pictures of these changes, then registering each change with drawings and notes.

2. ART PROJECT:
“Making Art” is a spontaneous way for a child to express himself and communicate his/her own personal experience to other people. With this project the children will find the way to express themselves through a different communicative language: visual literacy.

3. CULTURE PROJECT:
The meeting between American and Italian cultures in our classroom presents an opportunity for an authentic diversity experience which will permit the students to focus their attention on other realities, both near and far from them.
We will teach our students about the most important Italian festivals, using constructive methods including short interactive stories, dance, folkloric music, and songs.

4. READING PROJECT:
“Stories – said C. Lewis – are like a gift of love, they do not ask anything in return”. Children love to listen to the voice of an adult that is reading a story. We will use Italian childhood literature to help the students build an affectionate relationship with the Italian language.

5. MUSIC PROJECT:
Counting, lullabies, limericks, a little poetry in rhyme and children?s songs will be part of our musical project. The perception of rhythm and the musical sounds- the melody of a foreign language, helps students to feel comfortable with a new language.

6. BODY LANGUAGE AND PLAY PROJECT:
Movement games are important to build a positive relationship between the body and a language. These games not only reinforce the target language, but are also useful for the development of his/her personality. One of our objectives will be to create a comfortable learning environment, where the children can feel trust and happiness, therefore lowering their affective filters and allowing them to express themselves in a natural and spontaneous way.

Need more information?
Please inquire at administration@scuola.us

More Resources
To learn more about the Reggio Emilia approach or the advantages of learning a second language, please visit these websites:

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