Bringing Learning to Life

Building on her enormously popular book, Bringing Reggio Emilia Home, Louise Cadwell helps American educators understand what it means to use ideas from the Reggio Approach in their classrooms. In new and dynamic ways, Cadwell once again takes readers inside the day-to-day practice of a group of early childhood educators. This time she describes the growth and evolution of the work in the St. Louis Reggio Collaborative over the past 10 years.

Bringing Learning to Life:

• Addresses the fundamental principles of the Reggio Approach as they are experienced in the daily life of three American schools that have attained a very high level of understanding and practice.
• Uses an engaging, journal-style format to describe real-life classrooms, including details on the flow of the day, parent participation, teacher collaboration, the importance of the environment, documenting students’ work, and assessment.
• Features many illustrations of children’s work as well as photos of “Reggio-inspired” classroom interiors and art materials, including some in full color.
• Recounts the significant highlights of the author’s week-long visit to Reggio Emilia, illustrating connections with the work being done in the St. Louis schools.

Louise Boyd Cadwell is a studio teacher/researcher in all three schools of the St. Louis Reggio Collaborative in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the author of the best-selling book, Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education.

“Cadwell eloquently shares the insights she and her colleagues gained from their experiences of adopting and adapting the philosophy, theory, and cutting-edge early education practices of Reggio Emilia. So much good Italian–American food for thought here!”
—Lilian G. Katz, Professor Emerita, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign

“Louise Cadwell and her colleagues have honored the extraordinary work of the pre-schools in Reggio Emilia in the best possible way. This book is a rich portrait of the exploration of the meaning of Reggio’s work in their own schools, giving us vivid portraits of both the teachers’ and the students’ work and learning.”
—Steve Seidel, Director, Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education