Cooking With Kids: A few lists of benefits and tips!

Cooking with preschoolers links mathematics, science, social studies, art, and reading, together. This is done by encouraging children to talk about what they are doing, counting, and watching changes in color and texture during the chemical changes happening during the cooking process.

From getting the ingredients from a garden or a store, to the cleaning, pre-cooking prep and the final cooking stages, this can be a fun-filled activity with nearly endless options of ingredients, and ways of cooking them.

Cooking also helps develop eye-hand coordination and teaches littles how to work safely with cooking utensils, stoves and ovens--even if it’s the famous Easy Bake Oven, many of us grew up using.​

Image via LD Browning

​Here’s a short list of the benefits gained when kids learn to cook...

• Following recipes encourages children to be independent, teaches them to follow directions and develop problem-solving skills

 

• Cooking helps preschoolers to learn and practice some basic math concepts, by doing something as simple as counting eggs or pouring water into a measuring cup. They learn the concept of sequencing through reading recipes and discussing what comes first, second, and third in the cooking process.You can ask what comes first, second, and third or count together as you spoon dough onto a cookie sheet

 

• Following steps in the recipes helps develop communication skills and memory, especially when reading through the recipe together, and introducing the child to new words and seeing how they’re spelled

 

• Strengthen preschooler’s  fine motor skills through pouring, scooping, mixing, squeezing, and spreading

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​The textures, smells, and tastes from the different ingredients provide an unmatched organic experience with an ability to entice both entice and amaze.

​Tips for introducing recipes to toddlers and pre-schoolers

•  Prepare a recipe chart with photos describing each

            step

•  Have ingredients in their raw form for them to
  

            smell, taste, and feel

•  Read the recipe aloud, and talk about it as you go
  

•  Discuss safe food handling and cleaning with them before and during the cooking experience
  

•  Include them in the clean-up process
  

Below are age-specific tasks that little ones can do in the cooking process.
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​Two-year-olds can...

• Scrub vegetables and fruits

 

• Carry unbreakable items to the table

 

• Wash and tear ingredients, such as vegetable greens

Three-year-olds can...

•  Pour liquids

 

•  Mix batter and other dry or wet ingredients together

 

•  Shake liquid in a closed container

 

• Knead dough

 

• Wash ingredients that need cleaned before cooking, such as vegetables & fruits

 

•  Put things in the trash when finished with it

 

• Mix ingredients with a blender

Four & five-year-olds can...

• Juice oranges, lemons, and limes

 

• Peel fruits and vegetables

 

• Scrub fruits and vegetables

 

• Cut fruits and vegetables (using a child-safe utensil)

 

• Measure and mix ingredients by hand or with a utensil

 

• Set the table and clean up after cooking

If you’re already doing some of these with your children, or have any cooking activities that can be added to the list, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear all about it!

LD Browning​