Shadow Stories

Going into the presentation I didn’t know what to expect…Where they going to show us their use of shadows in the classroom- what were we going to see or do? We approached the room, it smelled like the drier room for the cheese and it was dark- at least not hot…the last time they apologized for not having turned on the AC – it didn’t feel good.
Did I mention the Loris Malaguzzi International Center was an old cheese factory repurposed as an Infant-Toddler Center for the Municipality of Reggio Emilia? It’s enormous and absolutely gorgeous, but because of Privacy Rules we cannot take pictures of the facility or any other facility.
Back to the story, we learned the importance of documentation as a vital part of the process guiding the direction of the children’s interests and investigations. The best part captured by the pedagogistas was when the children solved their problem on their own. They had scanned, yes scanned into a Power Point, their representation of a bird in flight. The children were learning how to animate the drawing during the presentation, but something was not right. The pedagogista helped the children some in reading the selections the children had as part of the animation. As they selected and changed their minds (as a group) they decided to select the inverted animation of the bird- so it looked like it was flying backward. Through the use of multiple re-drawings to make the bird look like it was flying the correct way, the pedagogista helped them prop the picture up with a mirror. Without saying anything she let the children work on their own problem solving skills. One astute child realized what was happening via the mirror. They finally understood what inverted meant and were elated they had solved their mysterious backward flying bird- it had been inverted in the animation ☺ These children were four years old!