The history and identity of the Municipal Preschool Centro Verde Martiri di Villa Sesso narrated by the the people who participated in its creation. The book tells the story of an educational community over almost half a century (1945 -1997)

Introduction -  Sergio Spaggiari

Our First 26 Years -  Loretta Giaronni

Our School as part of the Reggio Emilia Experience - Max Ghiradi

The Centro Verde - the children's thoughts and words

Publisher: Reggio Children (2002)

The history of XXV Aprile Municipal Preschool of Villa Cella, one of the first opened in Reggio Emilia after the end of the second world war.

"All of my little models were laughingly overturned: that building a school would ever occur to the people, women, farm labourers, factory workers, farmers was in itself traumatic. But that these same people, without a penny to their names, with no technical offices, building permits, site directors, inspectors from the Ministry of Education or the Party, could actually build a school with their own strength, brick by brick, was the second paradox." - Loris Malaguzzi

This book is a powerful history of one of the first centres for children and the dedication of women and parents after the devastation of World War II.

 Published by Reggio Children (2000)

Two films presenting descriptions of a day in an infant-toddler centre and a day in preschool: the everydayness of being together, the strength of a way of organising that is designed but light, knowledgeable but flexible; a special care for the environments and the way of being in school, the idea that the infant-toddler cenre and preschool are places in which culture is created.

"Our hope is to raise normal children as the result of hard-won and everyday utopia" (Loris Malaguzzi)

• A day in an infant-toddler centre (running time: 13'58")
• A day in a preschool (running time 19'15")
  
  Production: Reggio Children 2011 DVD-PAL

An English translation of the Italian booklet produced for parents, and indeed anyone in the community, by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.

It is a synopsis and introduction to the values and practice of the preschools: an essential companion for any visitor or interested enquirer.

"The development of Indications, carried out with wide community involvement and participatory consultation, represents an important achievement in ensuring that the guiding criteria for operating the early childhood services are transparent, shared, and put into practice, criteria deriving in large part from the actual history of these educational services."

Published April 2010 from the original Italian version (2009)

The right of children to a welcoming, beautiful, functional, planned, relaxing, lovable, soft, funny, musical, intelligent, neat and perfumed space!

Double CD-Rom with more than 90 pictures of the environment of the Infant toddler Centres and Preschools of Reggio Emilia from the ‘80s until now.

Published by Reggio Children

Children as Individual and Group Learners'. From the research project conducted by Project Zero at Harvard School of Education and Reggio Children.

Involves teachers and pedagogistas from the Municipal Infant-toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia and researchers at Project Zero.

This is a crucial resource for all teams of educators, heads, managers engaged in researching and extablishing creative, reflective pedagogy.
Published by Reggio Children (2001)

The documentary film on the history of Reggio Emilia’s municipal centres for early childhood, with historical pictures and interviews with the protagonists.
The narrative of more than a century of educational history.

Directed by Michele Fasano
Produced by Reggio Children with the International Association Friends of Reggio Children, the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia
English translation by Gabriella Grasselli and Leslie Morrow

2002, DVD, running time: 72’

This recounts the story of the birth and development of Reggio Emilia's early years services, the nido and scuola d'infanzia.  It brings together the voices and thoughts of many 'protagonists' and which refers to many sources.

A collective autobiography, an impassioned history that weaves with other histories, in a long and subtle skein of what Loris Malaguzzi called threads of silk: "A history made in this way could pass for a history that has travelled down the years and seasons without a cloud... Instead experiences of this kind, so anomalous, always walk on threads of silk." (Loris Malaguzzi, 1993)

The narrative is developed through a number of broad themes: city and families participation, the active role of women and women's movements, the politics of education in the city's municipal administration, the ties between pedagogy and politics, the originality of pedagogical thinking of Loris Malaguzzi and of the Reggio Emilia education project, and the strongly international identity of what is a local experience.

These themes, all topical and capable of generating new questions on education, on the role of schools, and as their highest aspiration, on the culture of children and human beings, are explored more deeply through contributions and considerations from architects, atelieristas, designers, academics, philosophers, photographers, teachers, pedagogues and pedagogistas, poets, film directors, scientists, writers and historians: the theory of the hundred languages of children here shapes the construction of the narrative form. Certainly, a book which takes sides, on and by the side of all children.

With interviews and texts by Renzo Bonazzi, Simona Bonilauri, Ettore Borghi, Jerome Bruner, Antonio Canovi, Luciano Corradini, Gunilla Dahlberg, Graziano Delrio, Paul Ginsborg, Loris Malaguzzi, Carla Rinaldi, Vea Vecchi.  Edited by Rolando Baldini, Ilaria Cavallini, Peter Moss and Vania Vecchi. English translation Jane Mc Call.

A collection of papers from North American authors and educators representing a variety of perspectives on the implications of the Reggio Approach on early childhood education.

Edited by Lilian G.Katz  and Bernard Cesarone

Published by ERIC/Junior (1994)

Reflections on Early Childhood Education & Care is a collection of papers published by the British Association for Early Childhood Education to mark the first showings of the Exhibition ‘The Hundred Languages of Children’ in Newcastle Upon Tyne and London in 1997. 

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Perspectives on a Reggio Emilia Diary 

Through the voices of Carolyn Edwards and Carlina Rinaldi this book presents a powerful tool of observation, reflection and professional development for educators.

An assemblage of affectionately written notes and photographs, the original diary chronicles the journey of one child’s first month in a infant-toddler centre in Reggio Emilia.

It includes international reflections on the significant learning from educators' diary of a young child in a Reggio Emilia infant-toddler centre.

Published by Redleaf Press (2008)

The catalogue of an important exhibition (2007) which is already travelling around the world; it speaks about the developments and the innovative flair of the educational experience in Reggio Emilia.

Recent projects carried out in the municipal Infant-toddler Centres and Preschools of Reggio Emilia are presented in five different sections: a wide interdisciplinary kaleidoscope crossing different languages and media. The metaphor well representing the whole cultural project is the one of the democratic piazza, a place open to the exchange of opinions so as to build up a new idea and a new experience of citizenship.
Edited by Ilaria Cavallini, Tiziana Filippini, Vea Vecchi and Lorella Trancossi
Graphic design by Rolando Baldini and Vania Vecchi
2011, 216 pages