The Image of the Child

Okay all you Reggio colleagues. The Image of the Child a principle I have struggled with given my tendency not to trust children with books and a few other things. Suzanne knows how I have struggled with this. But believe me I must have a fantastic image of the child because I trust them to learn everything put in front of them. This little tirade is a result of being questioned about trying to teach continents (I know it's learn and I have learned a lot). In our newsletters every other week we are to include words we are teaching and we are teaching continents but were told that concept is too hard for these young children. However in my usual tactful way (don't laugh brothers I am very different at work-I don't have to be tactful with you.) I explained how the children learn this concept. And of course I opened their eyes and they understood. Would you believe continents comes from our project, "What can Fly?" Of course you would because you would immediately think of airplanes. It is flags that lead us to countries which lead us to continents which will lead us to airplanes because I have to get back to bees and butterflies for our trip to the insect museum in a couple of weeks.
Tomorrow I'm off to Hangzhou "the most beautiful city in China" for 2 days. It promises to be a fun trip with a group of strangers set up by a travel agent. The weather is beautiful although there is a possibility of rain. We are going to the Xixi Wetlands while there so I hope the rain doesn't happen. I'll let you know all about it.
The end of the school year is coming up fast and then I'll be home again. I have so much to accomplish in the next 3 months - reports now, portfolios, displays for global child day, work for the yearbook, reports again in June. We have 4 reports in the year on the children and it makes my head spin. The portfolio is what I really need to work on and I have a lot to do there but that is very exciting work. The displays for global child day is exciting too - that will be based on our project work on flags, countries and continents. And oh yes, I want to put together a display of everything we learned this year sort of a synopsis for the parents to take a look at in June. I think I'll do some of that right now. Talk to you later.