scintillae – play and learning in the digital age
scintillae – play and learning in the digital age is a research project that explores the relationship between play and learning in the digital age, as a result of the collaboration between Fondazione Reggio Children and The LEGO Foundation.

Play has an important role in the development of cognitive, creative and relational skills of the human being. Through play, children actively build their own idea of the world. However, people often tend to separate the time of play and learning, relegating play to leisure time, without recognising that it facilitates the emergence of different specificities and skills.






Fondazione Reggio Children recognizes play as a research process and learning context in the digital age.
Through the scintillae project, Fondazione proposes a context in which the expressive potential of play is put in dialogue with digital tools so as to generate unexpected and unusual encounters. With the aim of learning, designing and building together, the initiatives and activities of scintillae are aimed at children of all ages, teachers, educators, researchers, parents and experts.
«It is with this space, with this atelier that we gave birth to a new child we have to raise together. And just as I learned from Professor Carla Rinaldi, when a child is born a family is born, a community is born. I really think that our organisations can be considered a family and as such, our task is to support, protect and welcome our child. »
Bo Stjerne Thomsen Dr. Bo Stjerne Thomsen Head of the LEGO Foundation Centre for Creativity, Play and Learning – Chair of Learning through Play

Between analogue and digital materials, children and adults become explorers of a new world. By playing you research and develop creativity and skills.
The space that houses scintillae is located at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre. scintillae can be disassembled and reassembled, and it offers a wide variety of natural and recycled materials along with digital tools, including new generation prototypes by LEGO and the MIT Media Lab in Boston.
In the first year of activity more than 50 initiatives were carried out with more than 1,600 people involved and several important collaborations were started.
50 initiatives
470 children
930 families
400 adults
scintillae official opening, 12 April 2019
On the occasion of the National Braille Day (21 February) and the initiatives to celebrate Loris Malaguzzi's birthday, on Sunday 27 February 2022 Fondazione Reggio Children invited adults and children to three moments of exploration and play with LEGO Braille Bricks at scintillae.
Children and parents went to discover the Braille alphabet by touching and exploring the special LEGO Braille Bricks donated by the G. Garibaldi Regional Institute for the Blind to the Foundation to carry out research projects.



Explorations with class 5A of the Collodi primary school of Reggio Emilia - Scuola Diffusa project (2021-22)




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