Teachers enjoying themselves!

Looking at the recipes that we make at school and I send home, we make a lot of bread products. As part of our "changes" unit, we made a simple yeast bread again. We did some reflective journalling today, and I offered to make word cards for any new words anyone would like for their drawing and writing. One boy asked to write "bread" -- our bread that we had mixed the day before and shaped and baked that morning was cooling on a cutting board right next to his table.

He added a drawing of a boy licking his lips at the smell of fresh bread coming out of the oven:


It always goes quickly.


These are the things I wish we could do more often in the classroom. Something as simple as baking bread can make an environment so comforting for children and adults, too. Children need the opportunity to see adults being creative and enjoying themselves. I've often thought about opening up my own book during our occasional book times. When we were sewing, I worked on my own embroidery. Teachers can model things that aren't just "teaching", right? Isn't modeling a form of teaching?

I think teachers spend a lot of time fretting and whizzing around the room this way and that, and that can create a tense mood. I know I'm guilty of it. The art teacher here mentioned that he used to teach in a Kindergarten in Massachusetts where there was a fireplace in the classroom, and he would sit in a rocking chair and knit from time to time by the fire.

I think that is a teacher is responsible and attentive to children's needs and creates an appropriate environment, there is definitely a place for them to model other activities and hobbies for children to observe.