If you create the right atmosphere, where students can overcome shyness and express their creativity – a place where they can freely play with each other – the results can be astounding. One of those magical places has been created in the integrated preschool classrooms at Greece’s Autumn Lane Elementary School, where our youngest students are communicating, sharing and playing in their own imaginative gingerbread bakeries.

BOCES 2 preschool special education teachers Meghan Davis and Stephanie Sekaz worked together to design the friendly and colorful bakery activity centers.

 
“The main focus for this activity is open-ended play,” said Davis. “Students collaborate with peers and take what they know about bakeries and apply it into their own play scenarios. Our bakery center is open during less structured times of the day to let students take charge of their learning and feel a sense of ownership with the theme.”

The two teachers guide student play with changing situations that gently build new collaboration and motor skills. Sekaz said “We started with making paper cookies this week to practice with. Next week, we are going to make gingerbread playdough and use it with cookie cutters in the bakery.”

We’d love to see where imagination takes these inventive young minds next.