Our Image of Childhood
Elevating the image
Childhood is a time of infinite wonder and possibility that is also significant to the development of the brain and therefore the child and how they view the world.
We aim to create a space that young children can explore their interests, follow their curiosities, and learn about their world in an environment that empowers them to safely explore risk and be active participants.
Teaching and learning is viewed as a collaborative process where teachers can gently guide and support children by carefully observing their play, listening to their inquiries, and using these observations to facilitate their learning. This encourages the development of autonomy and cultivates a deeper understanding of their world.
We encourage children to put their theories into practice and continuously observe them in the process. This enables teachers to gain an extensive understanding of how each individual child learns and develops. It also also constantly evolves the teacher's knowledge of early childhood.
The teacher acts as a coach and a researcher who will document their findings to share with colleagues, families, children and the wider community to elevate the image of the child as capable and competent learners who can be active contributors to society.
Recent Study: 101 Uses for a Paper Plate
Observation and Documentation One day Max brought a paper plate mask from home. It was something that he had created as part of an activity at a birthday party he attended over the weekend. Later on in the day I observed four kids sitting around the table in our mini atelier with Max – they
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Tom Dodd 
A Bill of Three Rights
Written by Dr. Loris Malaguzzi, and translated by Lella Gandini and Eva Tarini The Rights of Children Children have the right to be recognized as the bearers of important rights: individual, social and legal. They both carry and construct their own culture and are therefore active participants in the organization of their identity, their autonomy
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Recent Study: Boats
While the Vita Mia students have been following an interest in boats they have been exploring the properties of water, buoyancy, flow and motion. This study can also foster children’s social and emotional development, as they have been interacting with each other to share ideas, opinions, listen to different perspectives, collaborate on problem-solving, and negotiate
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Recent Study: Lines
Lines are everywhere and yet so easy to overlook! What begins as a way of developing pre-writing skills (an important part of literacy development and communication) can lead to improving children’s ability to detect and form patterns, shapes, and letters. Incorporating other mediums into the classroom such as wire, play-doh and wood encourages developing a
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Recent Study: Risky Play
Risky play in early childhood is an important way of encouraging children’s development of self-confidence, resilience, executive function abilities as well as risk management. It is something that changes with each child and their own unique ability. Standing for the first time is risk taking at some point in life, while so is wrestling with
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Recent Study: Lights
Tesoro has been playing around with a variety of lights. The children have been experimenting how different toys change color in the presence of the rope lights. They even experimented with their hands and legs, touching where the rope lights were illuminating their skin. In the dark, and with a more powerful light, they noticed
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Andrew DeJong 
Recent Study: Mushrooms
It fascinates me how attentive young children can be while out in nature. A study of mushrooms is not what I would have predicted. But, at the same time, why am I surprised by children's natural curiosity and desire to learn about these strange little things that pop up out of the ground!?
Read more → Tom Dodd 
Recent Study: Music
Music can stimulate children's natural curiosity and desire to learn as they explore the diversity, sounds, rhythms, and emotions of different music genres and instruments.
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A Toddler's Point of View
Avventura were recently gifted an electronic “disposable” camera. This piece of technology has proven to be an interesting topic of discussion and exploration in the class.
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Audrey Hannah 
Gigi's Garden
The garden contains several raised garden beds and lattice trellises within a safely enclosed space. Children of all ages use the garden to explore, experiment with plants, water, and bugs, and learn about life cycles and nature.
Read more → Tom Dodd 
Judah's Bridge
For several weeks Judah had been adamant that he wanted to design a rope bridge for the playground. He showed us where it should go and discussed materials that should be used. We spoke about how we could promote the idea to everyone else and then decided to build a model. He found the materials in the back room and we started putting it together.
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Passero Piazza
The coffee bar is a project that came about from a former student who would take orders from teachers and then make a morning coffee delivery around the classrooms. The name, “Passero” translates from Italian to “Baby Sparrow.”
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Playground Redesign
These conversations set us off on a school-wide, child-led project to improve our outdoor areas and work out how to make the best use of the space we have. Our students made many requests for items like real life fire trucks, swimming pool, more water play, pirate ship, bridge and tennis courts.
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The 100 Languages of Children
The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages a hundred hands a hundred thoughts a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking.
Read more → Andrew DeJong