LSU ECE in Italy

Coriandoline: Community Designed by Children "Le Coriandoline" is a small neighborhood located on via Loris Malaguzzi.  In  2001 the project to design and build the neighborhood using children's ideas won the Peggy Guggenheim prize.  P lanning began in 1994, involving 12 schools from around the country. In all, the project incorporated the ideas of 700 children (helped by 50 teachers, 2 pedagogiste, and another 20 people including architects and engineers). In keeping with the Reggio Emilia educational and cultural tradition, children were invited to reflect on and share their ideas of an ideal house.  Typical of children everywhere, they wished for houses like castles, houses with jewels, and houses that resembled tree houses.  They wanted everything to be colorful and insisted that each house should have its own atelier - a place devoted to creation. Adults then incorporated the children's ideas to create this little neighborhood, with a famous Italian ch...

Overview of the Italian School System - Lucia Balduzzi, University of Bologna                               The LSU contingent arrives at the university! First, we received an overview of early childhood services in Italy from our education and child development colleague, Lucia. Ellyn and Gabby paying careful attention. Lucia introduced the concept of valuing children that guides all aspects of Italian early education.               Lucia describes how Italian educators and community members have changed their perspectives about the purpose of early childhood education and care.       Bologna's Evolution from Roman Times to Renaissance - Rosa Smurra, University of Bologna Next, we were given an orientation to the history and culture of Bologna by a history professor Rosa Smurra from the University of Bologna. Gab...

IRIDE School This municipally-funded school serves children ages 0-3. The school was built after the 2012 earthquake. The school had a 'temporary' name until the children had been in the school for a while and came up with the name, "Iride", which means 'eye'. The children got very interested in the 'porthole', an architectural feature of the building that they noticed and paid careful attention to because it was at toddler eye level.  From this grew both the name of the school and its logo. Children's explanation for Iride. The design of the school allows for nature and the outdoors to be part of the indoor space. All classrooms have large windows and a door to the outdoor space, which is frequently open, allowing the children to go between the indoor and outdoor spaces. There are a variety of levels/surfaces in the classrooms for young children to navigate. Children's work is displayed at eye level for the infants and tod...