Skip to main content

RIE

Resources for Infant Educarers, RIE

RIE  is the philosophy we following regarding our care and education of infants. The philosophy does carry on with the older children and we follow the same practices as the children get older. RIE was developed by Magda Gerber. She was originally from Hungary. She spent time working and learning from Emmi Pikler. Emmi Pikler was a pediatrician who opened a home, called Loczy, after World War II for children who had lost their parents. While running Loczy Dr. Pikler develop a system of care that provided the children with healthy attachments to their caregivers. These children were followed for many years after leaving Loczy to see if their attachment and emotional health was as stable as children who had been raised at home with their own families. Over the years of following the children that lived at Loczy, they found no discernable difference between those children and the control group. Due to the type of care provided, the children of Loczy had healthy attachments and social-emotional development. Loczy is no longer operated as a residential home for children. It is now called the Pikler Institute. They provide childcare, parent groups, and teacher trainings. I have been wanting to attend a training at Pikler for many years. I hope to get there someday.

Magda Gerber spent time learning from Emmi Pikler before moving to the United States. While here in the US, Magda worked with Thomas Forest to found RIE.

The following are the core principles of RIE, which we take very seriously here at school.

OUR GOAL: AN AUTHENTIC CHILD

An authentic child is one who feels secure, autonomous, competent, and connected.
When we help a child to feel secure, feel appreciated, feel that “somebody is deeply, truly interested in me,” by the way we just look, the way we just listen, we influence that child’s whole personality, the way that child sees life.

TRUST IN THE INFANT’S COMPETENCE

We have basic trust in the infant to be an initiator, to be an explorer eager to learn what he is ready for.
Because of this trust, we provide the infant with only enough help necessary to allow the child to enjoy mastery of her own actions.

SENSITIVE OBSERVATION

Our method, guided by respect for the infant’s competence, is observation. We observe carefully to understand the infant’s communications and his needs.
The more we observe, the more we understand and appreciate the enormous amount and speed of learning that happens during the first two or three years of life. We become more humble, we teach less, and we provide an environment for learning instead.

CAREGIVING TIMES: INVOLVING THE CHILD

During care activities (diapering, feeding, bathing, dressing, etc.), we encourage even the tiniest infant to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient of the activities. Parents create opportunities for interaction, cooperation, intimacy and mutual enjoyment by being wholeheartedly with the infant during the time they spend together anyway.
“Refueled” by such unhurried, pleasurable caring experiences, infants are ready to explore their environment with only minimal intervention by adults.

A SAFE, CHALLENGING, PREDICTABLE ENVIRONMENT

Our role is to create an environment in which the child can best do all the things that the child would do naturally. The more predictable an environment is, the easier it is for babies to learn.
As infants become more mobile, they need safe, appropriate space in which to move. Their natural, inborn desire to move should not be handicapped by the environment.

TIME FOR UNINTERRUPTED PLAY AND FREEDOM TO EXPLORE

We give the infant plenty of time for uninterrupted play. Instead of trying to teach babies new skills, we appreciate and admire what babies are actually doing.

CONSISTENCY

We establish clearly defined limits and communicate our expectations to develop discipline.

You may have noticed that we do not have any sort of swing, chair, or contraption in which we put the children of our youngest classroom. We truly believe in the freedom of movement. It is the process in which children learn to move that is the most important part of their gross motor development. Children become aware of their own bodies when given the space and time to move. We choose not to restrict children's movement at any time. 

You may also notice that we talk a lot to the children. This goes for all age groups. We tell the children what we are doing before it happens and while it is happening. If we need to change a child's clothing we let them know that we are about to take off their shirt and pull it over their head. Our goal is to respect children and give them the opportunity to react and to be involved. 

This is just the beginning of RIE and the work of both Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber. If you would like to learn more, here are a few websites and books that are definitely worth taking a look at:


RIE     Pikler   


Classroom Updates

Infant I: This week we have been singing lots of songs and accompanying them with hand motions. The children love this and are starting to learn some of the motions. Peek-a-boo continues to be a popular game in our classroom. The older children are now using objects around the room to play the game instead of just using scarves. Sometimes they surprise us by hiding behind a wooden stained-glass block and other times it's the holes of the climber. We are also happy to report that while for some children it may have taken a couple of months, we are now all excited about getting outside! The children happily crawl over to the cubbies when we let them know we are heading out. 

Infant II: Everyone was happy to welcome back our newest classmate this week. We have been working hard to make her feel comfortable and safe at school. Everyone has been very excited to interact with her and even chant her name and cheer at drop off! In fact, greeting our peers each morning has been a new and wonderful routine to our mornings. The children are definitely excited to make friends and play with one another. Our efforts to dress ourselves when going outside has really increased! We are putting on mittens, snowsuits, socks, hats, and boots almost completely on our own. We also really enjoy helping our peers get ready. We search for each other's hats, boots, and mittens and give them to one another. We have had a few different teachers in our classroom this week, due to teacher sickness, it was exciting for some of the children to have new teachers to play with! 

Toddler I: We had a great week in our classroom! We are being mindful of routines and classroom rules while being consistent with our expectations of behavior. We continue our work on self-help skills. Toilet training continues, the consistent schedule is making a big impact for some of the children. This week we worked on slowing down and being mindful of our bodies around one another. a big treat we had this week was sent to us from Florida, thanks to Carly's parents! Florida oranges!! The children were so excited! We heard lots of "So juicy!" and "So yummy!". We used this opportunity to practice taking turns and using good manners with specific emphasis on please and thank you. 

Preschool I: We had a smaller class this week but still had pplenty of energy. We have also had some children visit our classroom from the toddler room. Pre-K delivered a stack of penguin books to us which have been a huge hit! We have also expanded our music time at circle to explore shakers and some new songs. The children are really getting the hang of "Knick knack paddy whack" and love it when they remember the correct rhymes, the most popular being "knee" and "three". We also made  BIG ice cubes using a donated carton and yogurt containers. Hopefully colder temps next week will let us freeze things outside. 

Preschool II: There were several mornings this week focused on painting. We mixed a few new colors and worked together on large group paintings. We explored with mixing colors on paper to see what would happen too. We continue our letter work each day. We have a new game at circle where we pick out one letter. We practice the sound with our mouth and then work together to come up with words that start with that letter. We have gotten very good at sounding words out to hear the letters. We read the book "I will keep trying" this week as well. We had a big discussion about things that are hard for us but we need to keep on trying. Here are a few of the thoughts: 
"I fell off my pedal bike and got a big scrape but I got up and did it again."
"When I do hard puzzles."
"Trying to open the cover of soup."


PreK: We have been working together to create new playspaces and discussing each day how we feel about them. We've created our ice cream shop and are thinking about the different roles we can play (customer, wait staff, deliveries). We continue with our alphabet study, this week was letter G. Groundhog begins with G. We talked a little bit about groundhog day which has got us very interested in shadows. We will be investigating them all next week. We also took a walk into town to see the ice sculptures and decided to try sculpting ice ourselves in the sensory table. We will work on this activity again next week.

Working with tools to create an ice sculpture. 





 









A stick was inside of this icicle! 


Chopping fruit for Fruit Salad Friday! 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

And they're off...

I know Graduation officially happened in June but Friday marked a special day. It was the last day for several of our children that will be heading to kindergarten on Monday. These children have been an important part of the community of Mountain Village School for many years. They have helped to shape and mold our school into what it is today. Their interests, ideas, movements, interactions, conversations, and presence has had a big impact on what we have done with our time, where we have gone, what we have chosen to build and create. I want to thank all of those children for being a part of our school and our community. News and Reminders Mark your calendars: The PCC is planning a playdate with fire safety information for the morning of Saturday, September 15. More details coming soon. Kitchen Update This week the children tried carrot "noodles" which were happily slurped up in all class

February 25, 2017

News and Reminders We have a parent potluck coming up on Thursday, March 16th at 6:00 pm. There will be a Parent Collaboration Committee Meeting directly after. If there are specific topics you'd like to discuss or learn about at the potluck please let me know! Your input would be really helpful. Classroom Updates Infant I: Lots of our play this week has been centered around balls, especially the white whiffle balls that can frequently be seen rolling around our room. Their plastic surface makes them nice and bouncy, and the holes are just the right size for our little fingers to grasp them. They also make a fascinating sound when rolling around in a metal bowl? We teachers have also been thinking about how best to support the gradual development of self-soothing skills, which is an important component of independence in our room. Families, we would love more family pictures for the wall. We love to talk about moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and family pets! Infant II: This