Following a Reggio Emilia inspired curriculum means that each year may look a little different than the year prior. Teachers help to develop and foster a curriculum that is based off of the children’s interests and in response to what is happening around them. We focus heavily on social emotional learning, as we want to help guide our students to learn how to appropriately communicate and problem solve with their peers. We hope to teach our students about kindness and respect so that they can share that with their communities, beyond their time at Harbor City School. While we are Reggio Emilia inspired, we do touch upon the MA frameworks and guidelines for Preschool/Prek, and weave them in into our curriculum planning.

All activities are age appropriate and with consistent guidance, designed to foster the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development of all children while still meeting the individual needs of children.

There are seven principles that educators of young children implement which are:

• All young children are capable of learning.
• Children show individual differences in development.
• Knowledge of child growth and development is essential for program development and implementation.
• Children’s language skills are the best predictors of academic success.
• Developmental domains are highly interrelated.
• Young children learn by doing.
• Families are the primary caregivers and educators of their young children.

What children learn does not follow as an automatic result from what is taught, rather, it is in large part due to the children’s own doing, as a consequence of their activities and our resources.
—Loris Malaguzzi, The Hundred Languages of Children