The Learning Caravan Pte. Ltd.

Sweden Study Group 13 - 15 May 2015 Facilitator: Rick Ellis Coordinator: Alyna Chong Day 2 - May 15, 2015 For our final day of our programme, we visited the Katarina School, where we met the Director, Anna and two of the teachers, Maria and Erika.  We spent the morning here and began with an overview presented by all three of the teachers about the history of the school.  We learned that it was begun by a group of mothers  who lived in the building but needed a programme for their children while they went to work.  The teachers have participated in professional development through Reggio trainers.   We began the tour with a view of the space on the first floor for the youngest children.  The teachers very openly shared how many changes the space has gone through, based on observing the children and allowing themselves to be vulnerable to the need to change to respond to the children’s needs.  They initially divided the room into distinct ...

Sweden Study Group 13 - 15 May 2015 Facilitator: Rick Ellis Coordinator: Alyna Chong Day 2 - May 14, 2015 Today we had the opportunity to spend the entire day at another school and met Suzanne Axelsson.    Suzanne greeted us in the morning and gave us a tour of the school, explaining this building had NOT been created as a school but was a former post office!  Renovations were done to the building where possible to make for a better space for the children but certain things were not able to be removed, such as the huge safe used by the post office.  However, the space had been redesigned very effectively.  Rooms were allocated for large motor movement, an atelier, dining and kitchen areas, a dark room for playing with light, and another area for exploring with natural materials.   Suzanne gave a very detailed presentation about the space and its history, also discussing the flexibility of the space and the many things the staff has tried ...

Sweden Study Group 13 - 15 May 2015 Facilitator: Rick Ellis Coordinator: Alyna Chong Day 1 - May 13, 2015 It was the first day of the study group and we were excited about meeting with the group of educators from Norway and Greece.   Alyna and Rick were at Scandic Klara an hour earlier on the morning of May 13, 2015 to organize the room before the arrival of the educators. The group comprised of 18 educators from Norway and 1 educator from Greece. We used the first half of the morning as introduction to the programme.   Rick Ellis, acting as group facilitator spent the morning developing community amongst the group and using some interactive practices to acquaint the group with some of the theory of Reggio Emilia, attempting to emulate the style even with an adult group. The purpose of this was to emphasize the importance of the concept of community in the Reggio philosophy.  There seemed to be agreement amongst all of us about the g...