What is the Reggio Emilia Approach?

• A style of teaching that empowers children as active participants in their own learning.​Children learn their place in the world through interactions. Reggio inspired settings engage the children in social collaborations through group work and play.
• A child has 3 teachers-their parents, their schoolteacher, and their classroom. We believe that a child’s environment can teach them just as much as we can! Our classrooms are set up with purpose and are not overstimulating. 
• Documentation-Reggio inspired settings document children’s learning and play through pictures and texts for children and families to revisit. Children look at photos of previous activities and remember and recall what they learned during that activity. At ICA, you will see descriptions as well as photos underneath children’s work.
  
• Children have many languages-We believe that each child has many languages, or many ways of playing, learning, and communicating. These languages are fostered at ICA in the ways that we allow the children to express themselves, through art, and through individual learning processes.
  
• Classrooms and common spaces cohesive with each other, as well as with the outside play areas.

At ICA, children learn through experience and play. They learn through the guided activities that are presented to them each day. ICA utilizes Mother Goose Time (Experience Early Learning) curriculum. This curriculum aligns with the NJ learning benchmarks for Kindergarten so children who graduate from ICA are well prepared for their school years.