Role of the teacher

Give roles to children such as letting them hand out the materials; create their own explorations, observations and discussions. Provide opportunities for communication by having the children work in groups to discuss ideas and having a circular table. Having no time limit allows the children to take their time with the activity, make more explorations, observations and encourages children who take a while to engage in activities start to warm up to it (Bosse et al., 2016). Provide opportunities for the children to record their observations by providing materials such as paper, markers and crayons so they can draw what the cookies looked like before they were baked and what they look like after being baked (Marshall, 2006). Encourage children to make predictions after they put the cookies in the oven on what their cookie may look like when it is baked (Worth, 2010).

Providing lots of time

Providing paper and materials to encourage children to draw their predictions

The teachers should work along side the children exploring the materials with them to not only observe the children’s interactions but to also facilitate the children’s learning by providing them with new language skills such as “capacity” “hypothesis” and “temperature” (1.5 language). Make detailed observations to see how the children are interacting with each other and the activity (Eric development team, 2003). Make adaptions to the children’s learning, if the children show interest in measurement the teacher should be staying with the children providing them with more measuring materials to further explore their interest such as more measuring cups or having a scale they can use to see how much grams are in 1 cup of flour (Eric development team, 2003). The teacher should provide materials that are plentiful but also limited such as 2 measuring cups per group as that helps children develop language skills, as they need to ask each other to use the materials. Ask open-ended questions such as “what do you think will happen when…” “I wonder..” “What will happen when?” (Marshall, 2006). Provide opportunities for the children to answer their own questions by allowing them to explore the materials and make their own research by looking at books or even going on the internet (Worth, 2010). Help children start to make connections with their past experiences and with the activity they are doing (1.5 language). Also supporting the children by allowing them to engage in role-play by providing them with chef hats and aprons (the arts 2.1).

Exploring with the children

Have the children’s discussions and findings on charts such as graphing what each of the children's cookies taste like such as hard, soft, crunchy, chewy (Marshall, 2006). Provide discussion time before and after the activity in order for children to have the opportunity to state information they know as well as reflect on the new information they have now learned (Marshall, 2006). Through discussions allow the children to reflect on their experience and discuss what they would change to their recipe and what they liked about the exploration so the teacher can make changes and add materials to the activity (Worth, 2010). Encourage children to revisit the activity and make connections to what they learned previously and what they can do differently as they attempt to make the cookies again. Teach the children the importance of health as the teacher can ask the children “why is it important to wash our hands before handling food?”. This can start to get the children thinking about hygiene and the importance of good hand washing (1.3 health and physical activity). The teacher should always find ways with the children to extend the activity such as if the children were really engaged in role-playing the teacher should take the children on a filed trip to a bakery or bring a guest speaker to the classroom to teach the children about baking (Eric development team, 2003).

Modelling washing hands 

Provide class discussions