The Project
Children’s primary needs are: individualized care and attention and stimulation to enhance learning opportunities for development.
Children aged 0-3 need to be first of all explorative, to allow them to create a relationship with the reality around them. This need grows with children: it starts with the need to see, to touch and then continues with the need to explore and manipulate objects to grow knowledge.
When children turn 2, these needs allow them to develop an initial understanding of their boundaries between themselves and the world around them and this awareness leads the child to discover their learning style and those of others.
For this reason, the educational project gives value to:
The dimension of relationships, sharing, and dialogue between different natures to allow the interrelation of reciprocal diversities. This social exchange fosters the emotional, social growth of the child and promotes their holistic development: the group is the platform where the child learns to cooperate, share and negotiate.
The development of autonomy, identified not as the ability to do things for oneself, but as self-awareness when responding to one's own and other needs.
The dimension of care through individualized relationships to promote the child’s well-being and reinsurance to allow them to live their daily routines with openness and serenity.
The dimension of “space”, where environments are rearranged and co-constructed to respond to children’s needs.
The dimension of play, seen as the primary way for the child to develop knowledge as regards themselves, their actions, and their possibilities (cognitive, emotional, social, and creative). Play is like a gym where the child trains to understand how the world works.
Nido is therefore organized as follows:
Social moments where children share spaces and create relationships with different age groups:
- Bruchi (caterpillar) 6-12 months
- Farfalle (butterflies) 12-24 months
- Api (Bees) 24-36 months
After 2 weeks of “orientamento” (progressive settling visits) where the child is allocated a primary carer, the child is then encouraged to develop relationships with all team members. This means acknowledging the competence of the child and recognize the role of the educator as a facilitator of present and future social relationships.
Our approach is very unique because it is based on rituals, such as Il RITO DEI CUORICINI (the ritual of the hearts).
This is the ritual that sets the start of the daily routines, where all children sit in a circle with some music in the background and are called one by one to wear the heart/talisman.
This ritual strengthens the relationship between families and children in care: Families have the responsibility to cut and sew a piece of fabric or felt heart with a little seed inside and a special symbol on the outside chosen by the parents. This heart represents the love and strength from mum and dad and will be worn every day. The “cuoricino” is an important and symbolic object that helps children to feel their family close when they are in care.
