“Practical life is a collaborative activity that creates community and culture. One’s adaptation to life through the daily work of ordering our environment lends meaning to all learning and to living a good life.” Uma Ramani

Nowhere is this truer than in the toddler community demonstrated by making snacks, filling bird feeders, doing the laundry, cutting flowers for the tables, washing windows. This is the real life of the toddler community. Throughout the year we practice many of these real life activities. Maybe most importantly, the toddlers are actively involved in food preparation.

Prior to joining the toddler community, many children have had little to no experience preparing food. At the beginning of the school year, we start out very simply, perhaps just pouring water over berries to clean them. As the year progresses, much of our food preparation becomes more complex. The latest addition to our food preparation activities is our daily bread making. In our classroom we have a special table dedicated to this activity. Each morning the premeasured ingredients are set out: flour, salt, yeast, warm water and oil.

For the toddler who chooses this activity, it all starts with a good hand washing. The toddler is then invited to wear the special apron and chef’s hat reserved exclusively for bread making. Once properly outfitted, the toddler begins scooping flour into the mixing bowl, followed by pouring yeast, water and oil in. Then, using a toddler sized spatula, she mixes all of these ingredients to make dough. When this is finished, the toddler is then invited by an adult to sprinkle flour over the table and to coat their hands. Next comes the kneading. This may or may not be a collaborative activity with an adult. The toddler is allowed to knead the dough for as long as they want. Once finished, the child places the dough back in the mixing bowl, covers it with a towel and leaves it to rise.

The toddler is then invited to wipe off the bread making table. Usually the bread dough rises while we eat snack. We may peek at it during snack time to see if it is getting “puffy”. Once snack is finished, the toddler who mixed and kneaded the dough is invited back to shape it, or maybe add some additional ingredients. The dough may become rolls, breadsticks, pretzels or flatbread. Occasionally something may also be added: fresh herbs from the garden, chopped apples, or cinnamon and raisins. Once this is done the dough is set aside to rise once more. It is usually baked in the afternoon and then eaten as a part of afternoon snack or the next morning’s snack.

For many toddlers it’s the process of these exercises of practical life that interests them. However bread making just happens to yield a tasty treat that can be enjoyed by the child who made it and her classmates!

“Care of self, care of the environment and social interactions punctuates our day from the first moment of waking till we go to bed at night. They fill our lives with comfort and care, a full belly, a clean body, beauty and friendship, love and laughter, and give structure and purpose to our lives.” Uma Ramani

Thanks for reading,

Erin