Clay

A Manual dedicated to the “language” of clay in Reggio Emilia’s municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools, offering lots of suggestions and experiences for education, with technical information “warmed up” by the way children make use of this material.

From this “dialogue” the many expressive potentials emerge, but also the physical challenges and stumbles created by the material, and the strategies adopted by the children to solve problems. Also emerging is the discreet and fundamental role of an adult who designs contexts capable of prefiguring new and different situations.

A Manual that speaks with a multiplicity of voices:  the voice of clay, and of technical competency, the voice of children and teachers, and of the older children and adults frequenting ateliers at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre.

Clay is a soft material, and good, with the right thermal sensations. It asks children to simultaneously effect multiple coordinations, involving the hands, the eyes, hearing and smell.
It entails investments of an affective, sensory, imaginative and ideational nature...
To a privileged degree, working with clay offers the extraordinary resources of being accompanied by language and socialization.
Loris Malaguzzi