What Are Your Teaching Ingredients? {A Linky Recipe!}

The other day I had someone ask me what my blog name meant or stood for.  It’s not a question I get very often but I always have fun explaining the meaning behind it, so I thought I would write a blog post about it!

When I first opened the Blogger screen on my computer almost three and a half years ago, I stared and stared at the URL line.  A non-teaching friend tried to help me come up with a name and asked me a simple question: “What is the most important thing a teacher needs to have?”  If you are a teacher, you know how hard that question is to answer.  THE most important thing?! We need a  bazillion qualities or characteristics to be a successful teacher.  

“I don’t know… there’s a lot of things that you need to have, all mixed together,” I told her. That was when my blog idea hit me – a teacher mixes in TONS of ingredients in order to get the perfect “recipe” for success.  The ingredients for teaching is like baking a cake. If you put in too much flour, the cake will be too dry.  If you have too much sugar, the cake will flop.  Similarly, if you leave “fun” out of the classroom, your students will miss out on understanding what it feels like when learning and joy collide.   If you spend too much time directly teaching your students, your students will find it difficult to think for themselves. Teaching is a delicate balance and a lot of love definitely needs to go into each and every child’s individual “learning recipe.” 

Teaching is a mixture of carefully selected ingredients that, when put together, create an unimaginable impact.  There are lots of sweet and sugary things about teaching – the kids, that moment when we see light bulbs of understanding go off, and those days we see a child rise in their confidence level.   There are also times when we need to add a little spice to our classroom in order to keep our kids on their toes and keep us energized as teachers and students. When I thought about teaching in this way, my blog name, Sugar and Spice, was “baked” and born!  
So what ARE the ingredients to teaching? It’s a different recipe for everyone.  I thought long and hard about some of the ingredients that are important to my own teaching and came up with these:
What are YOUR teaching ingredients? What are the important pieces to your recipe for a successful classroom?  I would love for you to join me in sharing your special recipe for teaching by participating in a linky party! Grab the two buttons below for your post. Link back to my blog and use the template to have fun designing your own “teaching recipe” of success.  

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8 Comments

  1. I love this post! I love the way you came up with the name for your blog! You are right.. Every teacher is different and every teacher teaches in a different way! My big ingredient is passion… I believe if you don't have pAssion for what you do, you can't fully enjoy what you do.

  2. Christina, I think you mix your creativity, passion for teaching and zest for life in a big bowl of love and poof!!! Here you are, SWEET as can be! I love you friend!

  3. I love your way of presenting and authentic information I get from your website. I really admire your hard-work in bringing out such important information in user-friendly ways.

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