As a part of our restaurant investigation we made our own pizza at kinder room with Kathy, our chef. We put two tables together and children sat around. Kathy made toppings and sauce. The choice of toppings was based on children preferences during group time discussion. Children were offered to choose what to top up their pizzas with.
Before that we talked about what is pizza and how can we make pizzas. Kathy showed children all the toppings and asked if they know which one do they know. Children were very confident with naming salami, cheese, ham, pineapple. They needed some help remembering capsicum.
What do we put on our pizza? – we asked children first.
Cheese! – said Child A
Sauce, – said Child B.
What is that, Kathy? – asked Child A pointing at tomato sauce.
That’s tomato sauce.
“My dad likes this sauce” – said Child B.
So children spread sauce on their pizzas and started to choose toppings. They used thongs to pick up ham, salami, mushrooms, pineapple and cheese.
My pizza is going to be a burger! – Child A folded his pitta bread as a burger and pretended to eat it.
When pizzas were all done we put it in the oven, cleaned the table and put our new placement on the table.
After 5 minutes our little pizzas were ready to eat. It was so good to make our own lunch. Child A, Child B, Child C were so happy with experience they asked to make chocolate cake with Kathy next week.
EYLF Learning Outcomes
Children have become more confident in cooking in a group, they displayed curiosity, enthusiasm and persistence during making their pizzas.
Children resourced their own learning through connecting with Kathy and other educators, by asking questions and sharing their ideas and knowledge about pizza making, food ingredients and cooking process.
One of the goals of the experience was learning more about nutrition, healthy cooking and making our own lunch. Children deepened their understanding of pizza making, ingredients we use to make pizza. Another goal was to provide children with opportunity to make a choice and be active participants in making their lunch from the ingredients they’ve earlier decided upon.
Have you ever come home from work feeling empty, like you used everything inside you just to get through the day? You try to smile, plan, and engage, but your energy is gone. Maybe your heart isnât in it like it used to be. If thatâs happening often, you might be edging toward burnout. I experienced burnout after 5 years of working as an educator, completing my degree and raising a child. It was tough.
Burnout in early childhood education is more than âjust being tiredâ. It is a creeping drain on your passion, energy, and wellbeing. In Australia, it is not just anecdotal. Recent studies show educators are being stretched thinner than ever.
What the Research in Australia Says
As you know, I love evidence-based information.
A recent national survey of 570 early childhood educators found that more than three-quarters work an average of nine unpaid hours per week, and educators spend less than 30% of their day in uninterrupted interaction with children. (sydney.edu.au)
In a systematic review of 39 global studies (including those from Australia), burnout risk increased when educators had low social capital, weak organisational support, lack of career progression, and poor workplace relationships. (iier.org.au)
In other words, the workplaces were toxic, the status of the profession is low (we are undervalued), we feel unsupported at workplace and we feel stuck.
During the COVID-19 period, Australian ECEC leaders reported the sector being pushed into âburnout centralâ, having to adapt constantly, manage change, and deal with increased stress and staff turnover. (researchers.mq.edu.au)
Teachers across Australia are reporting mental health impacts at levels three times the national norm, with 90% of teachers indicating significant stress, and about 70% calling their workload âunmanageableâ. (unsw.edu.au)
So yes, you are not imagining it. The system is pushing many educators to their limits.
đ Scientific signs of burnout in ECEC
These are the red flags you can notice in yourself before things get worse:
Emotional exhaustion You feel depleted, drained, or like you have nothing left to give at the end of the day.
Irritability and low tolerance Behaviours that used to feel normal now trigger you. You find it harder to respond calmly.
Loss of enthusiasm or cynicism You start doubting your work, questioning your purpose, or feeling âwhy bother?â.
Physical symptoms Headaches, digestive problems, sleep troubles, tension. Your body is telling you something.
Reduced performance or mistakes You miss details, procrastinate more, and forget things you normally wouldnât.
Emotional withdrawal You avoid staff room talk, stop collaborating, or pull back from relationships at work.
đ Quick Self-Check Quiz
Answer the following with Yes or No:
Do I often feel emotionally drained after a ânormalâ workday?
Have I become more negative or cynical about my role?
Is it hard to switch off from work when Iâm home or during weekends?
Have I skipped breaks, meals, or rest just to get through the day?
Do I feel less effective at my job than I did before?
Interpretation:
4â5 Yes = strong signs of burnout, take action now.
2â3 Yes = you are under strain, a reset is urgent.
0â1 Yes = you are doing okay for now, but check in often.
đą 5 Ways to Reset
Micro-breaks Even 60 to 120 seconds of deep breathing, stepping outside, or pausing to notice your surroundings can calm your system.
Set boundaries Decide: âI will not do observations after 7 pmâ or âNo work on Sunday mornings.â Do not WORK at home!
Lean on your network Talk with your colleagues, get a buddy, use supervision or coaching. You donât have to solve everything solo.
Reflect with journaling or logs Each day, write one thing that went well and one thing you found hard. Over time, you will see patterns and growth.
Seek structural support or professional help If your service offers counselling, mentoring, or wellbeing programs, use them. Coaching, reflection, and counselling have shown effectiveness in reducing burnout risks in ECEC settings. (iier.org.au)
If you resonated with the quiz results, donât wait for burnout to get worse. Pick just one of the five reset actions above and try it this week.
Hey, educator! Imagine you are a child in a space where every corner quietly whispers to you, âTry me.â Thatâs affordance theory in actionâletting environments extend invitations that children can see, sense, and act upon.
James J. Gibson wasnât an early childhood expert. He was a perceptual psychologist who posed a deceptively simple question: What does an environment offer a child to do?
He called those offerings âaffordances.â A low wall might afford sitting for an adult, but balancing for a toddler. A puddle might invite stepping or splashingâor even measuring depth with a stick. Crucially, affordances are relational. Whether an environment offers an action depends on both the environment itself and the childâs body, ability, and intention in that moment.
A Shift in Thinking About Space
This lens reframes planning from âWhat activity should I set upâ to âWhat actions does this space already invite and how might I make them more obvious?â
For example, placing a plank between two milk crates doesnât just create a balance beam. It offers a spectrum of challenges: balancing, crouching, carrying, and even turn-taking. Raise one plank slightly higher, and children begin to compare, calibrate, and talk about âeasyâ and âhard.â Thatâs affordance thinking at work.
James Gibson
Perception and Action as One
Gibson showed that perception and action are not separate, as theyâre a continuous loop. Children donât learn balance through talking; they learn by stepping, wobbling, adjusting and sensing. Smooth timber feels different from rubber tiles under your feet. A slope suggests experiments in rolling, sliding, and speed. Loose parts prompt discovery as children merge material with sand, water, or wind. Children fine-tune what the environment affords them today and, as skills evolve, those boundaries shift.
This space affords throwing, hiding behind, rolling the barrel
The Power of Direct Perception
Gibson argued that we rarely calculate our environment; instead, we see it. The layout of surfaces, textures, and edges is enough to guide action. So in a classroom, clarity is always better than clutter. When paths are clear, tools are visible, and materials are intuitively placed, like clipboards near the block area or a pulley rope near the sandpit, the environment itself communicates what to do. As a teacher, you don’t need to explain much.
What Educators Can Do Right Now
Offer ânestedâ affordances, which are spaces that invite many actions. Think of a sand-and-water table with gutters, funnels, pots, and a ramp: it asks for building, measuring, transporting, exploring cause and effect, and working together. Outdoors, keep natural variations: small slopes, logs, uneven edges support real-world coordination and risk assessment. Indoors, choose sizes and heights for childrenâs bodies, so they lift, pour, carry safely. Use open storage and clear display to make choices obvious and clean-up seamless. Rotate one or two elements to refresh engagement without overwhelming.
A Simple Example
I placed a low ramp in the block area alongside toy cars. Children start rolling the cars. One notices the car stops midway. You introduce a strip of fabric and ask if it might help, and they test âbumpyâ and âfast.â Later, they prop the ramp higher and add a bucket to catch the cars. In an hour, the space invited measuring, predicting, revising, and talking. I didnât lead the learning, I created the space, watched, and responded.
EYLF 2.0: Affordance theory and the framework
The Early Years Learning Framework VersionâŻ2.0 (EYLFâŻ2.0) explicitly positions affordance theory as a practice theory. It is a lens for educators to see what environments make possible for children. It encourages us to design spaces that invite action rather than demand directions (Australian Government Department of Education [AGDE], 2022)
EYLFâŻ2.0’s Learning Environments section describes how spaces and materials should “invite active and quiet play, respond to childrenâs strengths and interests, and allow reasonable adjustments”. And it highlights that educators need to support âplayâbased learning and intentionality,â meaning they should thoughtfully create spaces that promote problem-solving, curiosity, and when needed, join inânot overrideâchild-led action (ACECQA, 2018).
Have you ever sat and watched children playing, wondering how they can shift from one scenario to another so quickly, and yet somehow keep it all together? From the outside, it can look random or even chaotic, but inside their world, there is an order and meaning that makes perfect sense to them.
Vygotsky theory of play
Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist. If you have watched my videos on Vygotskyâs theory, where I compare Vygotsky to Piaget, or when I unpack Vygotskyâs theory in more depth, you’d probably know that Vygotskyâs social-cultural theory, also called the cultural-historical perspective, values play a lot!
According to Vygotsky, childrenâs pretend or imaginary play is very important. He described it as a leading activity for development (Vygotsky, 1973, p. 103). Through actions and interactions with others, children become aware of what they could do and could not do on their own. I really like this definition because I have observed my niece involved in very complex play. I have also watched many young children playing throughout my career as an early childhood teacher, as a mum, as an early childhood educator, as a playgroup facilitator and as a storyteller. Sometimes I sit back and watch children as they play. I can see how their scenario changes, but it all happens in a way that, while it might seem messy from the outside, is internally very structured. That is where Vygotskyâs theory comes into play.
The features of pretend play
According to Vygotsky, pretend play has three features.
Number one, children create an imaginary situation. As he says, the child pretends as if this stick is a horse or as if this block is a phone.
Two: they take on this situation and then act out roles. They usually assign these roles to each other. For example, they might say, âI am going to be a policeman, you are going to be someone who is running awayâ, or âI am going to be a cat and you are going to be a mum at home.â
Three: They follow the rules they have created, and usually these rules come from the social and cultural context of the roles. The imaginary situation allows children to engage in a pretend rather than a real world.
Honestly, my niece really lives there. She loves pretending. She is at that stage. She is eight years old, and the wondrous world of imagination is really mesmerising. I watched her a lot this summer. In this world, in pretend play, an object can be separated from its meaning. Object substitutions are possible, reflecting an important element of cognitive development (Smolucha & Smolucha, 2021).
Children enact roles in play, and they show emotions associated with these roles. For example, if a baby is your role in play, you might cry or crawl after your peers and the âmumâ and other people who are involved. Pretend play is a context where children can explore and express a lot of emotions. I have seen this â from fear to reasoning, from frustration to being very happy. This is an important step in emotional regulation.
Imaginative play is very important!
While children engage in pretend play freely, for more than 20 minutes or even one, two, or three hours, and create their own rules connected to their roles, they are developing, according to Vygotsky. They are learning within their zone of proximal development.
To sum up, I recognise play as an important process. The EYLF states that it is play-based and it is part of our curriculum framework, but quite often, people do not understand that to develop scenarios and roles, children need time. As an early childhood educator and teacher, I advocate for opportunities for children to discover, create, improvise and imagine. This should be supported by intentional actions of educators, which means they must have time and space for it.
Since I got a dog, I walk every day and sometimes more than once. Walking is such a simple activity that I started to enjoy more and more just as a process, rather than a chore. I did a little research, and I think this can help you as an educator / and parent to feel happier and more grounded. There is scientific evidence to support my claims, don’t you worry!
1. It regulates your nervous system
Walking, especially at a steady pace, activates my parasympathetic nervous system, the ârest and digestâ mode that calms my fight-or-flight response.
When you walk, you’re literally telling your body, “We’re not in danger anymore.”
2. It creates bilateral stimulation
Left foot, right foot. Left, right. I actually start with the right, due to being right-handed…
This rhythmic pattern mimics EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) , a psychological therapy used to process trauma and reduce anxiety. Dr Andrew Huberman talks a lot about it in his podcasts.
Walking naturally engages both hemispheres of your brain, and
Lowers rumination
Improves emotional processing
Increases mental clarity
Since I suffer from racing brain and too many thoughts, I feel so much better after walking. Even coffee cannot beat it.
3. It resets my attention
Anxious thoughts tend to loop in my head. “What will I do in my class on Friday, I need to buy this book about Aboriginal Science, I have not finished reading Rachel Carson yet, I should not really buy another book”. Walking outdoors, especially in nature, introduces gentle, soft fascination, a concept from Attention Restoration Theory. Bird sounds, leaves moving, sunlight shifting, these low-demand sensory cues calm cognitive overload. For me – pure gold. That’s why I make a lot of videos while walking.
4. It boosts mood-regulating chemicals
Walking boosts:
Serotonin (mood stabiliser)
Endorphins (natural painkillers)
BDNF (a protein that supports brain growth and resilience). Don’t ask me, I have no idea what this is, but apparently is good for me and you!
Even a 10â20 minute walk can change the brain chemistry noticeably.
5. It gives me agency
Anxiety often makes me feel trapped, ruminations in my head, in my patterns. It is not far from starting to feel like a victim. Walking is a small act of movement, which turns into momentum. I am kind of proving to myself: “I can move. I can choose. Iâm not stuck.” Then I start working or cleaning the house or planning this difficult lesson.
đż How to Make Walking Work for You
Try to use no phone (I often leave it as home)
Choose natural environments if possible (parks, gardens, water)
Walk at your natural pace, not to burn calories. Although feel free to do what you want đ
Pay attention to what your body is doing, not just your thoughts.
Where do you like to walk?
Also, do you think walking with children will help them to feel better, especially if they have ADHD, Autism or Anxiety?
