The Reggio Emilia Classroom Environment
Fostering Social Interactive Learning
The environment where the student is learning (namely, the classroom and school itself) is often referred to in the Reggio Emilia method as the ‘third teacher,’ where children make sense of their world through how they interact with their environment.
The pre-school environments are generally designed in wide-open spaces which contain a lot of natural light and usually easy access to outdoor play areas. The classroom is created to be a common area where children are able to move about the space and interact with one another.
There is also a lot of hands-on learning materials like toys, blocks, and more. Like other classrooms, you’ll find display walls where the students' work is shared. Additionally, other areas will contain the more long-term projects that are accessed to continue to be worked on (like growing plants, for example).