Reflecting on Reggio – A Series of Wonderings

Wondering #1 – How can I set the classroom up to honor participation and relationship?

I was fortunate to be a part of a Reggio Emilia Study Group with the Vancouver Reggio Association in March 2025. I filled a notebook with words, my brain with wonderings, and my heart with joy and a sense of what’s truly possible in education. It’s an experience like no other – a tapestry of professional growth and personal growth in one full week of joyful learning, connecting and collaborating. This is the first in a series of posts as I compile my reflections on my week at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre, the schools and the community of Reggio Emilia, Italy.

“The environment should act as an aquarium which reflects the ideas, ethics, attitudes and culture of the people who live in it.” Loris Malaguzzi

As I look back at my notes from day 1 in Reggio Emilia, I’m left with more questions than answers. This happens often when immersed in the pedagogy of Reggio Emilia. A new school year is beginning and teachers have the privilege of setting up the classroom environment. This is at the top of my mind right now, so I share these wonderings with you, in hopes that it gives you a new way to think about setting up your classroom environment as I ponder setting up mine, with a goal of participation and relationship.

“Participation is the way to live in day-to-day relationship. Participation gives substance to rights. It is a way to achieve being a community.” Elena Maccaferri and Lisa Castronuovo, pedagogistas

What if we considered participation as a metaphor for relationship and learning? We participate to have fun and for joy. So how can we encourage participation in our classroom? Participation that children choose willingly and joyfully. I’m thinking of a new way to define “participation” – a definition that goes beyond doing what the teacher says. Rather, participation as a way of relationship and community.

What if we considered that the body is fundamental to learning? It’s where our sense of being in the world lies – with listening, feeling, being and becoming. How might this change our thinking as we plan the classroom space? For me, this means paying attention to the aesthetics. What senses are activated as I enter the classroom? What do children hear, smell, feel, see? What invitations are available for children as they explore the classroom? Can I invite children in to their space without having to say, “no, don’t touch, that’s for later, etc..”? Is it truly their classroom? Can they find cozy spaces with things familiar to them – such as family photos, favorite books from prior grades, stuffed animals of favorite characters, invitations to play with colorful and interesting objects? I want to fill my classroom with natural lighting or lamps, not the harsh overhead lighting. I will have larger areas for children to move and areas that are more compact, where children can make a tent or fit themselves into a smaller space. There will be a large group gathering area that is surrounded by shelves with our classroom library, so children feel like they are being hugged by favorite authors and the books we will love and learn with. I will have spaces to explore sensory materials, such as sand and water. I will have tables for children to work at, as well as spaces to stand and work or be on the floor. I don’t assign seats, as I believe that children can choose where they work best. This is something I will teach right away. Giving children control of as much as possible will help our classroom community come together and will give children a sense of agency and self-efficacy. I am continually asking myself what I can let go of controlling and hand over to the children. There are a surprising amount of things that teachers think we need to do that children are quite capable of doing! What might you give over to the children this year?

Do our classrooms honor children, who they are and who they are becoming? Do they honor the ideas, ethics, attitudes and cultures of the children and the teachers, as a community? I want to be sure my classroom is a blank page, so to speak, when children enter it. The walls are empty – with the exception of our linear calendar wall, family photos, our daily routines and a few select pieces of art that appeal to me and to children (Kandinsky, VanGogh, Picasso) or collaborative art from previous classes. The rest of the room will eventually be filled with children’s art and the tracks of their learning. I will have the fundamental space set up in a way that reflects what I know about young children and how they learn, but it will have many possibilities to be formed into a space that honors our community. The context is always evolving in response to what I observe and what the children tell me. Last year’s class loved blocks and our block area kept growing. The upcoming class might be the same, or they may need a larger art area. Time will tell. As I get to know them, we will negotiate the space to work for all of us. I want to be sure to keep my classroom clutter-free and well taken care of. I want to be sure that all materials I put out have a specific purpose and are taken care of. I model this and trust that children will take care of things. Children notice the “un-taken care of” in a space and it sends a message. When we take great care of our environments, the children will follow. Our environment is constantly transforming and evolving, as we follow the children and our community as it is being created.

“Care takes care and brings care.” Bellelli School teacher

What are your wonderings as a new school year approaches? How can you help make your environment an “aquarium”, reflecting the community of learners in the space this year?

Check back soon for the next post reflecting on Reggio.

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Writers Playshop on the NCTE Blog!

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is currently doing a blog series celebrating the National Day on Writing®.

I was excited to have our work in Writers Playshop be featured on their blog. You can read the post here.

Be sure to check out the many other posts by teachers passionately committed to teaching young writers. I promise these posts will inspire and engage you. Enjoy!

I’ll be at NCTE this year, presenting on Friday at 3:30 in Room 256 with Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Thompson. I hope we will see you there!

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Writers Playshop

“Once upon a time there was a magical forest. And a lion lived there. But he didn’t have a friend. So one day he found a girl who wanted to live in the magical forest with him. She had a crystal that lighted up when she was with kind people. The lion loved the girl and they were friends. They lighted up the crystals to find other friends and be kind. They loved the animals, the magic forest and everyone. The end.”

Storytelling in kindergarten. It’s my “magical forest”. From our first day together, children are encouraged and invited to find the stories in our classroom. Susan Harris MacKay inspired me to believe and to share with children that “stories live everywhere”! And their job (our job!) is to find them and share them. Each day that first week of school, I bring a material to our gathering rug. It might be blocks, paper, loose parts, clay, sand, magnetic tiles, etc. – any material that is in our room out for them to play and engage with. I make up a simple oral story using the materials and then invite the children to find their own stories in our room.

“Stories live everywhere! What story will you find today? Off you go!”

They don’t need to be asked twice. Children eagerly run off to find their stories. They find stories as they play at the light table, the dramatic play area (equipped with minimal props – real kitchen items, scarves, baby dolls), the block area, the music area, the art table or the Story Shelf (our shelf with loose parts that I add to on a regular basis – starting very small and simple and expanding as the year goes on). They soon discover that stories do, indeed, live everywhere. I roam around the room, eagerly listening to their wonderful stories. And then I invite them to put their story in a book, so it can live forever. There are blank 3 page books in our art area and many of the children choose to make a book with their story right away. But some wait a while to take this next step. And that’s okay. After listening to their classmates tell their stories, while looking at a photo I took and projected, or sitting beside the storyteller, or listening to an author share the book they made – all children will eventually want to make books so their stories can live forever.

But for now, the joy is in the process of finding stories and sharing them with one another. Oral language is a key component of a kindergarten classroom. We learn about characters and setting and children delight in knowing those words and purposefully plan these elements in their stories. They realize that stories live in the cafeteria, in our specials classes and on the playground. I continue with loads of storytelling as we create our story together as a community. They lean into an identity as a storyteller. They become confident in their oral language and their ability to capture the attention of peers and adults with their words. They learn story language and what makes sense. They learn how to answer questions from friends and add details to make their stories clearer. These first days set the stage for the rest of our year together. Our Writers Playshop follows a predictable structure of a whole group focus lesson, story making time and ending with a sharing time. But our story telling focus quickly expands.

We move into story acting – where children dictate a story to me and then they become the director as they choose actors and actresses to act out their story in front of an audience of their friends. We take our storytelling into math, where loose parts and tiny toys help children create math stories to explore mathematical thinking. We grow into our identity as authors and illustrators as book making takes off and our classroom library becomes full of the books we make. And we grow into our identity as readers, as we listen to many, many rich read aloud books and ask ourselves, “what did we hear or read today that might help us as story makers, authors and illustrators?”.

This work is not new, nor is it exclusively mine. I stand on the shoulders of so many wonderful educators such as Katie Wood Ray, Lisa Cleaveland, Donald Graves, Lucy Calkins, Matt Glover, Trisha Lee, Vivian Gussin Paley, Michelle Kay Compton, Robin Chappele Thompson, Georgina Ardalan, Angelique Thompson, Kenisha Bynoe, Susan Harris MacKay, Matt Karlsen, Angela Stockman and the many, many educators I’ve connected with through the years of studying writing, literacy and the Reggio Emilia approach to learning and teaching. Our Writers Playshop (named “Playshop” several years ago by a child who asked me why it was called “workshop” when it was really play) is a product of my 33 years of teaching, learning, unlearning, observing, reading, writing, researching and reflecting. It changes often, and I continue to learn and listen to what the children are telling me. There is not a script or a program to follow. It’s about following the children. I’ve found that the standards and expectations of a public school kindergarten classroom can be far surpassed with this way of teaching. Children go way beyond what is typically expected in a kindergarten curriculum. Writers Playshop is a powerful way of teaching that honors, challenges, supports and celebrates children and their learning – for life, not just for school.

If you’d like to get started, here are a few resources you might check out. Stay curious, keep reading and talking with colleagues and most of all, trust the children. Play is how children learn. Jump in tomorrow – join your children in finding stories, telling them and writing them down. Trust the children. Story creates our communities and brings joy to our lives. It’s truly magical.

Story Workshop: New Possibilities for Young Writers by Susan Harris MacKay

Princesses, Dragons and Helicopter Stories by Trisha Lee

StoryMaking: The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners by Michelle Kay Compton and Robin Chappele Thompson

The Gift of Playful Learning by Angelique Thompson and Kenisha Bynoe

About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland

“Children have a right to high-quality, vigorous instruction intended to support their academic skills within the discipline of literacy. But those skills must be inextricably linked to stories – to the paths every child determines need clarity in their own life. Increasing literacy skill should be seen as a means by which the stories flowing through each of us are supported as the effort they are to make better sense of the world in which we experience the complexity of our everyday lives. Literacy skills are no end in and of themselves, and treating them as such takes us further from the capacity every child has to use them to find and share our stories.”

Susan Harris MacKay in Story Workshop: New Possibilities for Young Writers

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Your Brain on Art

I just finished reading Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross. There was so much to consider while reading this book! The folks at The Studio for Playful Inquiry are doing a book study this month, and I’m excited to dive deeper into this book with others.

I was left with the understanding of how art is (or should be!) essential in our lives – for physical health, for emotional wellness, for connection, for relationship, for making sense of the world we live in, for relating to others, for self-expression, for being fully human – for pretty much everything. The importance of the arts is scientifically proven and well-researched in the field of neuroaesthetics (the scientific study of the neural bases for the contemplation and creation of a work of art). Art experiences should be available to everyone.

And school is one place we can make those art experiences available! I believe art is a right for children. And to be clear, I’m not talking about crafts – where children are instructed to follow the teacher’s lead and example to create something that looks like everyone else’s craft. I’m talking about art experiences that are open-ended, process oriented (focused on experimenting and exploring materials as one creates), playful, unique and limitless. Art is a way children can play, communicate, process experiences and feelings, use their imagination and negotiate meaning in endless ways. Our art experiences include paper, clay, loose parts, nature, markers, paint, pens, keyboards, drums, rhythm sticks, storytelling, drama, nature walks, light boxes, projectors, pencils, chalk, scissors, wire, cardboard, beads, staplers, tape and more.

In our kindergarten classroom, the art area is a favorite space to go – and this art area often expands throughout the room – and outdoors. I provide a multitude of materials, adding more things as children request them or when I see that a new material is needed. Materials are displayed and arranged in ways that children can access them independently. Children are invited to make and create in the art center during morning arrival, our Readers and Writers Playshop time and Choice Time throughout the day.

I introduce artists and their works throughout the year. Andy Goldsworthy, Alma Thomas, Howardena Pindell, Wassily Kandinsky, Picasso, Monet, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, Fanny Sanin, Bisa Butler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeffrey Gibson, Sonia Delaunay, Alan Shields, Georgia O’Keefe and Alexander Calder were some of the artists we discovered this past year. I also spend a great deal of time talking and learning about illustrators in the books we read. I teach the children to read art with the “I see, I think, I wonder, I feel” thinking routine from Project Zero. Each time we look at art or think about art, I make the connection that they are artists, too – and they might be inspired by the artists we get to know, or each other. I want the children to see themselves as artists and to have a sense of self-efficacy surrounding art and being creative. Creativity is an essential piece of our lives and our classrooms should nurture and allow for creative experiences.

“Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.” Loris Malaguzzi

How can you provide experiences and creative opportunities and invitations for the children you teach? How can art become another language in your classroom? And what might that mean for you, as an educator? Having a “sense of freedom to venture beyond the known” makes me think of limitless possibilities for children, and for us as educators. I think art can provide that space for us.

*Using loose parts, paper and pen to tell a story*

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The Linear Calendar Wall

“For 5 and 6 year olds, time becomes marked by what happened yesterday, today and what might happen tomorrow.”

Sally Haughey – Fairy Dust Teaching

Our linear calendar is an important teaching tool and classroom routine in our kindergarten world. This idea was born after many conversations with Kassia Omohundro Weekend, author of Math Exchanges, as we were both beginning new school years teaching kindergarten for the first time. We weren’t satisfied with the typical calendar routines in kindergarten (or the higher grades we had previously taught) and started to ask ourselves what would be a meaningful and authentic engagement for documenting the passage of time. We wanted to incorporate a time line of sorts, along with an audit trail documenting our learning together over the course of a year. The linear calendar has evolved a bit over the past seven years, but it remains an important piece of our classroom journey.

I get a calendar from an office supply store every summer and pull it apart. I display it from August to July on a large bulletin board in our room. Every month is included because I want it to show a full calendar year. The first thing that goes on the calendar is our birthdays. I spend time the first week of school having each child find his or her birthday month and day and put a star sticker on that day. This is how the calendar wall is introduced to the children. I see a lot of talk and curiosity as they ask, “When is my birthday?”, “How many months until my birthday?”, and “Look! My birthday is close to (a friend’s) birthday!”

Each month, I take that page off the wall and bring it over to our meeting area. We interact with this calendar all month in an authentic way – just like I write in my calendar planner. Together, we write in important events such as Back to School Night, early releases, guest speakers, teacher workdays, holidays, etc. We indicate days we are in school and days we are at home by highlighting weekends and holidays with a yellow marker. I spend time at the beginning of each month showing how the calendar flows into the next month by starting on the next day. This is a tricky concept and one worth talking about every month. Some years I have cut the extra days off the end and beginning of the month so the kids can see how it all fits together. When August ends on a Wednesday, then Thursday is the first day of September.

Every day we look at the calendar during morning meeting and see what is happening that day and what might be happening later in the week. At the end of the day, we cross out the day and write what day of school we just finished. We look to see what is happening tomorrow and for the rest of the week. I’ve found this SO much more meaningful than a song about what “yesterday, today and tomorrow” is, a sentence frame about what today is and what tomorrow with be or a recitation of reading the calendar – all things I’ve done in the past and yet, in June, many kids didn’t know how to interact with a calendar or tell you when tomorrow is.

The kids interact with this calendar on their own throughout the day. You can see them reading it with pointers, talking about how many days until winter break, counting days until the next birthday, reflecting on things we did in prior months, and having conversations during play, reading, etc. I am always amazed at the meaningful conversations that happen in front of the calendar wall.

At the end of each month, we reflect on all that we accomplished or experienced that month. We create an interactive writing piece together to summarize the month, and choose pictures to display on our calendar wall. The children and I put this together and display it above the calendar month page. This creates a timeline that captures our year together. Children, families and visitors all enjoy looking at our wall story about the year.

With each month page, I also display the piece of art that each child creates on their birthday, and birthday cards with the child’s name, picture and birth date.

Engaging the children in meaningful conversation, noticings, experiences and authentic calendar interactions and talk is appropriate and beneficial in kindergarten. It’s also fun!

I’ve found the linear calendar to be an essential tool in the teaching and learning in our classroom. I hope this post is helpful to anyone interested in creating one with their kids! Enjoy!

Our 2018-2019 calendar wall – ready to go!

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Reading – A 6 Word Story

Not a debate,

let them read.

Day 4

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Our Day – Their Way

“We must credit the child with enormous potential and the children must feel that trust. The teacher must give up all his preconceived notions and accept the child as a co-constructor.”

-Loris Malaguzzi

Our daily schedule – on this day

A few months ago, I was thinking about our day. Kids had been complaining that we didn’t have enough time for Writers Workshop when it was scheduled right after lunch, and I wanted to ask the kids what their thoughts were. I had always set our daily schedule. I started to question this, and began to wonder why I had to decide what the schedule would be. Why can’t the kids have a say in this? I initiated a conversation during morning meeting about our daily schedule. They agreed that the time allotted for Writers Workshop was a problem. They wanted more time to write, and they also wanted more Explore (our free play time), so we decided that we should try to fix this.

We started by establishing the “non-negotiables” – things in our day that we didn’t have control over, like lunch, recess and our specials. Those went up on the white board first. Then we took all the cards we had written out at the beginning of the year and looked at them on the rug. The kids talked about how they wanted the day to go and we created the daily schedule together. It was fabulous. They created the schedule to work for them. And they even carved out more time for Explore.

We have time every day for Explore – time to paint and create, as a choice

Now, as part of our daily morning meeting, we go over our daily schedule and talk about how we want our day to look. Most days stay similar to how the kids changed it a few months ago, but sometimes a child will suggest having Mathematicians Workshop at the end of the day, or switching Readers Workshop to the morning, or something else they want to try out. I let the kids decide how their day will look. It’s our day – and the kids should have a say.

Making the castle for Imagination Station

Day 3

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“You can’t find anything in here!” – Organizing Our Library

We had just returned from our monthly walking field trip to a local park, where we had found a fallen log and spent some time investigating and talking about what might live there. I was reminded of a book I had, A Log’s Life, and went over to our nonfiction book bins to look for it. The kids were waiting patiently on the rug, (as patiently as kindergarteners can wait), as I was looking furiously through the many nonfiction bins we have. I finally found the book – just after one of my kids said,

“We need to organize this library better! You can’t find anything in here! Why don’t we make it like the big library?”

Yes! She was right. The books that we had sorted in September as “learn about the world” or “stories” – were ready to be sorted again, with all the book knowledge that my kindergarteners had gained this year. I invited anyone who wanted to help with this project to gather on the rug during Explore time and we would organize the library better.

Several kids were interested and started working together, sorting the books into piles and having such wonderful conversations!

“We should keep all the dog books together. And all the monkey books in one place. And the snake books….wait, there’s a lot of books about animals. Maybe we can keep all the animal books together. But there’s a lot of books about dogs. I think dogs need to be on their own or there would be too many mixed in the animals. Then we couldn’t find dog books.”

“We have books about people…like farmers and nurses and Native Americans…Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Obama. We can make one place for books about people.”

“Here’s a book about colors. We read this book when we were making art and learning about colors. People use colors to do art, so it should go in the people place.”

I listened carefully and was amazed at how the kids negotiated the task, the organization and the labeling to make sure the library worked for them. Their conversations were so authentic and I loved listening to how they talked about where books belonged. They spent over two hours on this task and then proudly shared their accomplishment with the rest of the class.

It’s been one week and I’ve noticed how books are being returned to the correct bin and that this part of our classroom library has been revived – more kids are getting books from here and sharing new finds with each other. Ownership, pride, persistence, problem solving…these five and six year olds never cease to amaze.

Labeling the bins with interactive writing

The newly organized and labeled bins! We will add pictures next.

Day 2

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What Kind of Class Do We Want?

*Update: After presenting at the WLU conference in July 2018, several people tweeted out my “Who We Are” charts. I’ve revised this previous blog post with charts from the past 3 years and updated book recommendations. Enjoy!

I love the way winter break is like pushing the reset button. I’ve enjoyed relaxed days with friends, family, books and the mountains. It’s been fabulous. It’s recharged my mind, my body and my soul. I’ve allowed myself to step away from my classroom (physically and mentally) and now I feel a renewed sense of excitement, energy and possibility as I get ready to return in a few days.

My kids and I have enjoyed 17 days off. While it’s been wonderful, I know that January 3rd is going to be like starting all over again in many ways. Seventeen days to a five and six year old is an eternity. But I love the idea of a second “first day” of sorts. It’s a chance to re-establish our community, to get to know one another again, to reteach those things that were falling apart in December and to revisit what kind of class we are. It’s like a blank slate that we can create together again.

One thing I always do that first week back is to ask my kids, “what kind of class do we want to be? What kind of community do we want to have? Who are we?” Those are big questions, but my kindergarteners never fail to think deeply, to reflect on what was working and what wasn’t, and to create a promise of sorts that guides us for the rest of the year.

We start this conversation in our morning meeting on the first day back. I take notes on chart paper as we talk and start to determine what really matters to us. We read new books and revisit old favorites that first week back and talk about what makes characters kind and likable, or unkind and unlikable, and how that might look in our classroom. We talk about what makes us special and unique and about how we are different and alike. We talk a lot about how we treat each other when we agree and when we disagree. We read books like Grumpy Bird, Each Kindness, It’s Okay to Make Mistakes – and any Todd Parr book, Red, A Crayon’s Story, I Used to Be Afraid, Walter Was Worried, The OK Book, Elephants Cannot Dance, Ish, The Invisible Boy, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and Last Stop on Market Street – just to name a few of our favorites. Some more favorites to add to this list are: Love, Love the World, Sparkle Boy, I Am Peace, Be Kind, The Big Umbrella, In My Heart: A Book of Feelings, Brave as Can Be: A Book of Courage, All My Treasures: A Book of Joy, The Skin You Live In, Julian is a Mermaid, Why Am I Me?, I Am Enough, She Persisted, Be Who You Are, Not Quite Narwhal, Chocolate Me!, and A Unicorn Named Sparkle. The main idea here is to determine what would make our classroom a wonderful place to be, how can we respect and celebrate each others differences, how can we live in a joyful place together, how can we make a difference – and how can we contribute to that.

We revisit the chart daily, adding and revising our thinking. After a week or so, we create our own chart – through interactive writing – that reflects who we are in this classroom. We always display it in a prominent place so that, as one of my kids said last year, “everyone who comes in here knows that this is how they have to be. You can’t be mean and come in our room.”

Last year’s chart as a work in progress – adding things to it as we discuss. (2016)

This document serves as a class pledge or promise for the rest of the year. We read it and use it as a tool to solve problems, resolve issues and remind us of what kind of class we are. It’s a powerful tool to come back to when the inevitable problems arise.

Last year’s finished chart with photos! (2016)

How do you reset after a long winter break? Best wishes to everyone for a fantastic second “first day”!

Update: Here are the charts from 2017.

And here are the charts from 2018:

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Independent Reading: A look in a kindergarten classroom

Independent reading time is a key component of any reader’s workshop. It looks different at every grade level. What’s important is that we have a time, daily, for kids to read by themselves or with a partner, to choose what they read, and to have time to talk about what they are reading. In my kindergarten classroom, we have book boxes and a book box time every day. Every child has their own box. Inside the box is a variety of books. There is a Ziplock bag with their “just-right” books. In the bag there are guided reading books, paper books that we have read together as shared reading charts throughout the week, ABC charts, name books, cut apart sentences from guided reading groups and ABC books. Children know that they are to read their baggie books first. There are also “look books” – books they can read the pictures or retell the story. They can choose 5-7 “look books” to put in their book box. These are library books, books from our classroom library and favorites that have been read aloud. This might be a super cool book on snakes, a Pete the Cat book we’ve read out loud several times, a Mo Willems or Todd Parr book from our author study or any good book they find on our shelves. Finally, each child has a poem and song binder that is full of poems and songs we’ve read together as shared reading pieces. Our book box time is social, full of energy and full of engaged kindergarten readers – reading the words, reading the pictures, retelling the books, making decisions as readers and talking about books. Children choose a cozy nook to read, they decide if they are reading by themselves, with a partner or with a group, and they choose what they read – just like readers do. Here is a glimpse into our book box time. Enjoy!