“What Happens When Blue and Yellow Play Together?”
Materials like paint, paper, wire, clay and more are used in the Reggio approach as a vehicle of communication. So, when teachers propose questions like the one above, they are not looking for literal answers but layered meaning. In the beginning of the year, the teachers focused their year’s intention on creating a community from individuals meeting for the first time. The primary colors in this case, yellow and blue, stand for individual children. What happens when they play together? The colors create the secondary color, green. The children make connections to each other forming new relationships.
All this happens through the careful observation, interpretation, and interaction of the teachers. Playful questions are formed in team meetings and teachers follow up with observations that link children together. When Teacher Cynthia was facilitating the painting experience in the West Wing, she commented on things that would bring children together.
Teacher Cynthia: Oh, that reminds me of the foam in the ocean.
Dillon: When I get big, I’m going to swim deep in the ocean.
Finn: Sometimes, I take swimming lessons.
Marina: I swim with mommy and daddy and Dylan in the ocean (Cynthia translated this from Portuguese)
Sonia: I go to swim lessons, too, at someone’s house.
Later, these children will begin to venture out to the whole school, meeting the East Wing children. At that time, we will introduce the final primary color, red. The metaphor of muddy colors represents disequilibrium as children figure out how to welcome a third player into an established friendship. As colors become more clear, and secondary values appear: violet, orange, and green, we anticipate evidence of a healthy school community forming. – Teacher Cynthia and Kristin