REGGIO-INSPIRED
Bright Start is a Reggio-inspired & innovative early childhood education program in Santa Barbara, CA.
The Reggio Emilia Approach® is an educational philosophy based on the image of a child with strong potentialities for development and a subject with rights, who learns through the hundred languages belonging to all human beings, and grows in relations with others.
The Reggio Approach
The children are protagonists of the school–together with their teachers, they have built relationships, reciprocal leadership, support, collaboration, and joy. The children have transformed their shared experiences into resources and tools that support deeper thinking as they engage in rich conversations where different perspectives invite a robust exchange of ideas.
Every child participates in enrichment classes with specialty teachers in Music and Dance. They also experience daily explorations of different mediums and materials in the Atelier (Art Studio).
Each group has a separate classroom with a ratio of two teachers per fifteen-sixteen children.
The Hundred Languages
Multiple languages and disciplines of rich & varied materials are offered at Bright Start in an environment that supports relationships and is conducive for exploration, investigation, expression, and construction. Children gain experience working with: clay, wire, weaving, painting, drawing, sculpting, digital technologies, darkroom, photography & filming, wood, natural materials, ecology/nature, water & conservation, dance, movement, music, story telling, theater, building/construction, literacy/numeracy, and coding, among others.
The Digital Atelier
The Digital Atelier is another studio space where children investigate light & shadow and use various digital technologies. It is in this space children get to explore various digital environments offering a different perspective through a myriad of digital tools. This space also enhances creativity as children design slow motion movies, digital environments, among others.
Documentation
Teachers are in partnership with the children and provide appropriate questions for further exploration and research. The teachers utilize documentation to understand how children learn and perceive the world. Documentation makes children’s ideas visible and invites reflection of the children’s learning processes. A learning path emerges as children solve different problems among the group. As these problems get revisited and discussed, multiple perspectives and ideas are formed in this process, stimulating deeper learning, questioning and collaboration.
The Atelier (Art Studio)
The Atelier is a separate studio where The Hundred Languages are explored by children’s collective thinking and research. The Atelier welcomes all children to engage in touching, banging, stretching, molding, tracing, shaping, reflecting, and transforming materials to express through them their ideas. The Atelier practices also permeate all of the environments and classrooms—becoming a living & thriving atelier culture throughout the school.
The Environment as ‘Third Teacher’
At Bright Start we acknowledge the significance of materials, spaces, interactions, and esthetics of the school’s learning environments. These environments encourage exploration, connection, communication, discovery, and relationships, where objects and materials are beautifully and purposefully arranged.
PHILOSOPHY
We deeply value building strong connections between families and school.
Our aim as a learning community is to support everyone’s wellbeing. Bright Start is part of the West Coast Collaborative, a group of 5 Reggio Emilia inspired preschools, the other 4 located in Los Angeles, in dialogue with communities, families, and teachers to forge cultures of progressive education. Together with Tiziana Filippini and Reggio Children we have been in dialogue and consultancy for the past 4 years.
Professional Development is the cornerstone of our practice.
Our qualified teaching staff help children develop self-reliance, creativity, conflict resolution, critical thinking, and deep connections to each other, their environment and the natural world. We also provide additional enrichment classes to the children, such as dance, music, and Spanish. Bright Start offers bi-monthly parent-community meetings to discuss relevant topics.
PHILOSOPHY
We deeply value building strong connections between families and school.
Our aim as a learning community is to support everyone’s wellbeing. Bright Start is part of the West Coast Collaborative, a group of 5 Reggio Emilia inspired preschools, the other 4 located in Los Angeles, in dialogue with communities, families, and teachers to forge cultures of progressive education. Together with Tiziana Filippini and Reggio Children we have been in dialogue and consultancy for the past 4 years.
Professional Development is the cornerstone of our practice.
Our qualified teaching staff help children develop self-reliance, creativity, conflict resolution, critical thinking, and deep connections to each other, their environment and the natural world. We also provide additional enrichment classes to the children, such as dance, music, and Spanish. Bright Start offers bi-monthly parent-community meetings to discuss relevant topics.
WELL-BEING
Collaborative Learning– Bright Start believes that the children have the right to be heard, seen, and valued. We believe learning occurs in relationships with children, adults, the environment and materials. This collaborative learning process brings democratic values in the context of a community of equals that support justice, respect, trust, empowerment, and empathy. Working in groups establishes a learning culture of shared research and objectives. Children negotiate agreements, ideas, knowledge, different perspectives, intentions, and feelings. The ‘group culture’ fosters trust, enabling children to talk about their difficulties and find support from their peers.
Emotional Literacy helps children understand all of their feelings & supports self-regulation. Bright Start values kindness and compassion to communicate and children learn mindfulness strategies to work with big emotions.
Ecological Thinking– Our school has six different outdoor environments that support connection to nature with an abundance of fruit trees & plants that attract butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, and insects. Our plants harvest year-round, connecting living organisms with children’s explorations and supporting their relationship with the natural world. These intentional interactions show children our interconnectedness to everything while preparing them to become stewards of the environment as they learn how to co-exist with the natural world.
WELL-BEING
Collaborative Learning– Bright Start believes that the children have the right to be heard, seen, and valued. We believe learning occurs in relationships with children, adults, the environment and materials. This collaborative learning process brings democratic values in the context of a community of equals that support justice, respect, trust, empowerment, and empathy. Working in groups establishes a learning culture of shared research and objectives. Children negotiate agreements, ideas, knowledge, different perspectives, intentions, and feelings. The ‘group culture’ fosters trust, enabling children to talk about their difficulties and find support from their peers.
Emotional Literacy helps children understand all of their feelings & supports self-regulation. Bright Start values kindness and compassion to communicate and children learn mindfulness strategies to work with big emotions.
Ecological Thinking– Our school has six different outdoor environments that support connection to nature with an abundance of fruit trees & plants that attract butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, and insects. Our plants harvest year-round, connecting living organisms with children’s explorations and supporting their relationship with the natural world. These intentional interactions show children our interconnectedness to everything while preparing them to become stewards of the environment as they learn how to co-exist with the natural world.
