A festive thought

This catalogue presents research – carried out by Reggio Children, the Istituzione of Preschools and Infant-Toddler Centres of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia’s Department of Education and Human Sciences – that seeks to reflect on and make visible the mental processes activated in young children by their understanding, and producing, visual metaphor in the context of early years services.

By metaphor we mean the tool of language and thinking that connects distant elements of reality, thereby constructing new reality and new meaning.

Metaphor is a genuine system organising intellectual development; a tool of knowledge creating diff erent ways of seeing the world. Creativity, irony, the capacity for creating analogy and harnessing paradox are presented here, for us to welcome them into daily life with more awareness.