Community and public spaces can serve as rich and innovative learning environments for children by using intergenerational learning (IGL) as a pedagogical strategy. This was a key finding of a recent PhD study about IGL in early childhood education (ECE) services in Ireland conducted by Dr. Anne Fitzpatrick. The study demonstrates how IGL offers a contemporary take on a long-established belief that it takes a village to raise a child.

>> Read more

“Before the programme at my school I thought my place was pretty boring, I didn’t know a lot about nature but now I think differently. I think my place is amazing and I’m lucky to live here”. These are the views of one of the young participants in the Burrenbeo initiatives.

Based on the west coast of Ireland, Burrenbeo Trust is an independent charity which aims to connect all of us to our places and help to identify our role in caring for these places.

>> Read more

How can creative workshops involving lots of play and physical contact between young and old be reimagined for COVID times? This is exactly what PER TERRA IL CIELO (the sky on earth), an intergenerational theatre workshop project in the North of Italy, has achieved over the past 6 months. The theatre workshop is the creation of actor Anna Fascendini.

>> Read more

Europe is amid the third wave of the COVID pandemic. Luckily, there are many very committed early years and care professionals working tirelessly to connect generations in creative and imaginative ways during this the third Lockdown. Read Eilish Balfe’s blog about how Happy Days Early Years’ Service in Ireland has been maintaining intergenerational relationships in the village community of Ratoath, in Ireland over the past year.

>> Read more

“My child discovered the pleasure of imagination and curiosity: imagining what was going to be read to her and being curious about who would read it to her” says P., mother of Z (5 years old).

This is the opinion of a mother whose child participated in the pilot of the intergenerational Storytellers Project in Empoli, Italy. Words like mystery, anticipation, curiosity, and even magic often came up in the accounts of the parents when they thought about their children’s emotions during this experience.

>> Read more