CONNECTION
Learning grows through meaningful relationships among children, teachers, families, and the wider community.
Our Approach to Learning
Reggio Emilia
An approach to learning rooted in curiosity, relationships, creativity, and respect for every child.
Children at the Center
A Different Way of Seeing Children
At First Pres, we see children as capable, curious, creative, and full of ideas. Inspired by the schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, our approach grows from children’s questions, relationships, theories, and discoveries.
Learning Through Inquiry
Curiosity Leads the Way
Children arrive at school with questions, ideas, and theories about how the world works. Our teachers listen carefully to those ideas and create opportunities for children to investigate them more deeply.
A question about a shadow, an insect discovered outdoors, or a structure built with blocks can grow into days or weeks of exploration involving science, mathematics, language, art, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Learning at First Pres
What Reggio Inspiration Looks Like
Our approach is visible in the environments we create, the questions we ask, and the relationships we build with children.
ENVIROMENT
Thoughtfully designed spaces invite exploration, independence, collaboration, creativity, and discovery.
DOCUMENTATION
Teachers make learning visible through photographs, children's words, observations, and displays that reveal the learning process.
CAPABLE & CURIOUS
Children's questions and interests become opportunities for deeper investigation across many areas of learning.
PARTNERS IN LEARNING
Children learn with and from one another as they exchange ideas, solve problems, and create shared understanding.
MAKING LEARNING VISIBLE
Teachers observe, listen, document, and reflect as they thoughtfully plan possibilities for where learning may travel next.
The Hundred Languages
There Is More Than One Way to Think.
Children communicate and make meaning in countless ways—through words, drawing, painting, movement, music, sculpture, building, dramatic play, light, shadow, nature, and materials.
In Reggio-inspired education, these many forms of expression are known as the hundred languages of children. At First Pres, children are given time, space, and rich materials to explore ideas in ways that are meaningful to them.
Teachers as Researchers
Listening Changes the Way We Teach
Our teachers are not simply delivering lessons. They are observers, listeners, researchers, collaborators, and partners in the learning process.
Through careful observation and documentation, teachers seek to understand children's thinking and create thoughtful opportunities that challenge ideas, encourage discovery, and deepen learning.
Experience First Pres
Come See Learning in Action.
The best way to understand our approach is to see children exploring, creating, collaborating, and discovering for yourself.
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