PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR HOME AND ALIGNED WITH YOUR SCHEDULE

Get instant access, earn a certificate of completion, and 10.0 professional development hours...

  • Explore rich perspectives of eight different educational thought leaders as they share their experiences and thinking related to The Reggio Emilia Approach.

  • Discover theoretical understandings inspired by The Reggio Emilia Approach related to experiences shared with children in the early years.

  • Gain inspiration and practical ideas that you can take back to your own learning context with children.

  • Uncover creative experiences, everyday wonderings, and inspirational ideas to enhance your encounters with children.

  • Bring to children a fresh perspective on learning that is creative, immersed in sensory explorations, and grounded in theoretical foundations.

  • Learn about the journeys shared by our eight educational thought leaders and gain insights and inspiration from their own experiences and research with children in the early years.

  • Consider and think about your own philosophy of education, your current practise, and how the perspectives, and philosophies shared by our presenters might influence new changes and new experiences that you might bring to the children within your own learning environment.

Here's what's inside...

  • 1

    Welcome to Bringing a Reggio Emilia Inspired Philosophy to Children!

    • How to Navigate this Event and Access Your Certificate of Completion

    • A Welcome Message from Susan Wright

    • Before we begin...

    • The Affordances of Relationships, Materials, and Encounters in the Early Years: A Dialogue
  • 2

    Dr. Jean Clinton ~ 'How Reggio Emilia Has Inspired a Child Psychiatrist and Her Practise as a Knowledge Translator: Thoughts and Perspectives to Enrich Educators' Daily Encounters with Children'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Dr. Jean Clinton

    • How Reggio Emilia Has Inspired a Child Psychiatrist and Her Practise as a Knowledge Translator: Thoughts and Perspectives to Enrich Educators' Daily Encounters with Children

    • Reflections and Considerations

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 3

    Susan Stacey ~ 'Pedagogical Documentation as a Decision-Making Tool'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Susan Stacey

    • Pedagogical Documentation as a Decision-Making Tool

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 4

    Kathy Boelsma ~ 'Creativity in the Everydayness of Living'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Kathy Boelsma

    • Creativity in the Everydayness of Living

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 5

    Michelle van Heugten ~ 'Outdoor Learning and the Creative Journey of Children within the Arts'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Michelle van Heugten

    • Outdoor Learning and the Creative Journey of Children within the Arts

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 6

    Joanne Babalis ~ 'An Introduction to Educational Photography: The Rare Moments of Learning that Have the Power to Teach Us'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Joanne Babalis

    • An Introduction to Educational Photography: The Rare Moments of Learning that Have the Power to Teach Us

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 7

    Rosalba Bortolotti ~ 'The Atelier of Taste'

    • Susan Wright introducing Rosalba Bortolotti

    • The Atelier of Taste

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 8

    Michelle Taylor - Leonhardi ~ 'Inspired by My Trip to Reggio Emilia - My Journey into my Traditional Culture through Reggio Inspired Philosophy'

    • Susan Wright Introducing Michelle Taylor - Leonhardi

    • Inspired by My Trip to Reggio Emilia - My Journey into my Traditional Culture through Reggio Inspired Philosophy

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 9

    Susan Wright ~ 'The Nature of Nurture'

    • Susan Wright, Founder Nurtured Inspirations

    • The Nature of Nurture

    • Bonus: Nurturing Your Personal Journey Through Pedagogical Reflections ~ A Reflective Documentation of My Own Relationships and Encounters with Children
  • 10

    Your next steps...

    • Concluding Remarks from Susan Wright: Where Do We Go From Here?

    • Before you go...

    • More Resources for You

Educational Thought Leaders

Clinical Professor McMaster University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences

Dr. Jean Clinton

Dr. Jean Clinton is a Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster, division of Child Psychiatry. She is on staff at McMaster Children’s Hospital with cross appointments in Pediatrics and Family Medicine, and an Associate in the Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Toronto and Sick Children’s Hospital. She is a Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, as well as a Zero to Three Academy Fellow since 2013. She has been a consultant to children and youth mental health programs, child welfare, and primary care for over 30 years. Dr. Clinton was appointed as an education advisor to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Education 2014 - 2018. Dr. Clinton is renowned nationally and internationally as an advocate for children’s issues. Her special interest lies in brain development, and the crucial role relationships and connectedness play therein. Jean champions the development of a national, comprehensive child well-being strategy including a system of early learning and care for all young children and their families. She is equally committed to ensuring that children’s and youths’ needs and voices are heard and respected.

Susan Stacey

Susan Stacey’s work revolves around inquiry-based learning for both children and educators, emergent curriculum, reflective practices, and pedagogical documentation. She is a long time student of the thinking and practices that reach out to us from the schools of Reggio Emilia. Susan has worked with inquiry-based practices for over 35 years as an early years educator, lab school director, practicum coach, and consultant. In this work, she has mentored, encouraged and nudged educators toward shifts in thinking, trying innovative practices, and especially in documenting their work and ideas. Presently, Susan teaches courses on emergent curriculum and documentation, presents across Canada and the U.S., collaborates with book groups online, and is developing professional learning around the new N.S. Early Learning Curriculum Framework. Susan’s books include Emergent Curriculum in Early Childhood Settings; Unscripted-Emergent Curriculum in Action; Pedagogical Documentation; and Inquiry-based Early Learning Environments: Creating, Supporting, and Collaborating.

Kathy Boelsma

Kathy Kathy is a Registered Early Childhood Educator who is currently enrolled in the Forest School Practitioner’s Course from Forest School Canada and is studying the arts through the completion of her Creative Arts Certificate from Algonquin College. She is currently working at Blueberry Creek Forest and Nature Centre as a part time outdoor educator. This program thinks deeply about the connections to the principles of the Reggio Emilia Approach and Kathy works in this context as a researcher of learning. Kathy, also works as a pedagogical collaborator, supporting a co-construction of learning between educators. Educators have ideas to share with each other and Kathy strives to create spaces for learning together that gives everyone a voice, celebrates new thinking and offers time, leadership, and research. Her social collaborative network, ReCognition www.re-cognition.ca , is about creating experiences with educators that are reflective, honour ideas generated, and support the creation of knowledge. Kathy has supported educators for over 23 years in the early years, and has provided pedagogical support to childcare programs and organizations which include EarlyOn Centres, home child care, and groups of educators in the community. Her latest project, Early Learning Café, she hosts Online Live Conversations and Communities of Learning Packages that provide educators with ways to be in dialogue with the principles of the Reggio Emilia educational project in our own contexts.

Michelle van Heugten

Creativity has always filled my days with joy and wonder. My earliest memories from my childhood are of engaging in some type of drawing every single day. As a child, I was fortunate to have experienced deep connections to nature as I explored the forest that surrounded my childhood home. I delighted in the changing of the seasons and spent many hours outdoors in free and creative play with my siblings. Let’s just say that the forest became my art gallery as I hung my drawings throughout the trees. During my high school years, I further developed my love of the visual arts through painting, printmaking, and pottery. I attended the University of Windsor and graduated with a four year honours degree in Visual Arts with a major in Painting and a minor in photography. I attended teacher’s college and was hired by WECDSB in 1996. Since then I have spent 23 years teaching Kindergarten joyfully in the company of amazing and inspiring children. My current practice reflects my own understandings and research alongside children with a focus on supporting children’s creativity and imaginations through play and learning. I am a member of the Ontario Reggio Association (ORA) and the North American Reggio Emilia Association (NAREA). I continue to develop deeper into the Reggio Emilia approach to learning and living by attending workshops, webinars, presenting and through shared dialogue with others. Within my own pedagogical reflections and thinking, I continue to research the interconnected relationships between children, creativity, materials and the natural world.

Joanne Babalis

Joanne Marie Babalis is a Reggio Emilia inspired kindergarten teacher, Early Childhood Education consultant, PhD student, and kindergarten additional qualification course instructor at York University. She is passionate about the early years, specifically designing spaces that inspire inquiry-based learning and creative innovation for twenty-first century learners. Her blog, “TransformEd: Transforming our Learning Environment into a Space of Possibilities” www.myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.ca and Instagram @joannebabalis continue to reach educators throughout Canada and on a global scale. Each of her posts make visible the power of inquiry, as well as the strong potential of young children. Joanne recently opened up the TransformEd Creative Studio and Learning Centre in Woodbridge, Ontario for children birth to twelve years of age to attend with their families. She continues to spread important messages about transformative education within her conference presentations and training workshops that she facilitates for educators. Joanne’s hope is to keep advocating for children, inspiring their creativity and to encouraging their lifelong learning.

Educator. Pedagogist. Speaker. Early Educational Consultant

Rosalba Bortolotti

Rosalba Bortolotti is a passionate and enthusiastic early learning educational consultant with over 25 years of experience working with children, their families, and colleagues. Rosalba is an artist and Registered Early Childhood Educator with a Bachelor of Applied Arts from York University. She’s worked as a lead teacher in the Seneca Lab School and part-time professor in the School of Early Childhood Education at Seneca College. As a founding member of the Ontario Reggio Association, established in 2008, Rosalba is committed to this non-profit organization for educators who are interested in the work and education system of the infant-toddler and preschools in ReggioEmilia. Rosalba works from her home studio and atelier work spaces in Toronto, Ontario. As an early learning educator, consultant, and previous owner of the renowned Reggio Emilia inspired, Acorn School, Rosalba brings vast experience when working with various organizations, committees, schools, and early learning centres in Ontario, throughout Canada, and internationally. She works with the teachers, families, and other educators to support how learning happens, professional development, school wide parent partnership, and research development. Rosalba is the owner and pedagogical consultant of Acorn Collaborative established in 2005. Rosalba currently sits on the executive board, as well as being a member of the York Region Nature Collaborative which has been in operation since 2014. Rosalba is passionate about bringing families together through knowledge-building and experiences in farm to table foods, cooking together family style, slow living, slow food, sustainability in education, and everyday practices with children and nature.

Ottawa Regional Indigenous Community Educator

Michelle Taylor-Leonhardi

First and foremost, I am a proud mother of three. Two sons Kane (24) and Luc (22) and a daughter Kenni-Dee (9). I am a wife and a daughter. I am an Auntie. I am a colleague and I am a Friend. I am Mississauga Anishinaabe Kwe. I am Ojibwe and am from Oshkiigmong (Curve Lake First Nation). I graduated from Native Early Childhood Course in May of 1993. One of the first graduates of the Binoojiiyag Kinomaadwin Course at Cambrian College in Sudbury Ontario. I am a proud board member of the Ontario Reggio Association where I oversee membership. I am a Registered Native Early Childhood Educator. I was employed for 26 years at Oshkiigmong Early Learning Centre in Curve Lake. I worked as an NECE, Supervisor and Coordinator. I had the great opportunity to attend the Canadian Study Tour to Reggio Emilia in 2017. It was there while in Italy, touring the Infant/Toddler and Preschools, that I seen how closely related my traditional culture and the ‘Reggio Inspired’ ways of being were so connected. I am now the Indigenous Community Educator for the Ottawa Region for the Ontario Indigenous Centre of Excellence. I have the great pleasure of building relationships with Educators across our beautiful province.

Founder, Nurtured Inspirations

Susan Wright

For over 32 years, Susan Wright has shared a passion with educators and parents who guide, nurture, and inspire children. Working collaboratively with children, she works alongside educators and parents to make visible children’s thinking as a way to honour each child’s human experience and unique ways of being. As a teacher, researcher, author, and pedagogical leader, Susan brings a fresh perspective to education through the relationships she builds with educators and parents. As the Founder of the newest collective in education, Susan created Nurtured Inspirations as a way to connect globally with individuals and teams of educators and parents looking to share together as intellectual partners building learning relationships alongside children. Susan travels internationally and collaborates virtually with those wishing to build lasting learning partnerships that share in rich educational endeavours. Susan has visited schools in Canada, the United States, and Italy to study children’s thinking and learning, and to engage in pedagogical dialogue around educator practise.