K Is For Kitchen

   

   

The kitchen, atleast from my own perspective, is filled with the best memories. Family gathered around for dinner and sharing stories. There was  always something delicious smelling coming from the stove area. It was always busy with people coming and going. For young children it is so great to start out good memories in the kitchen. When you allow them to interact with you in prepping meals you are giving a wealth of knowledge to them.
     When cooking in the kitchen children become more involved and interested in food choices. Depending on us adults, children will be able to be more open to trying out new and healthier meals. Ofcourse I must say with the exception of children with sensory issues involving them in the food prep stage will not necessarily fix their pickyness over night, but it will help them begin to be more interested in attempting to try newer textures they did not seem open to before.
     Cooking is a science. Children tend to love measuring things with adults and dumping and mixing up ingredients. They love seeing the outcome of how all those ingredients turn out. Experimenting, hypothosizing and imagining what things will end up looking, tasting, and smelling like. These are questions that can naturally arise while working together on a meal. Along with a science lesson all the measuring, pouring, and mixing adds more strength to their fine and gross motor skills, which will help them as they learn to write as well as strengthen their hand-eye coordination.
     Literacy is also a key componemt of cooking in the kitchen. Children are quick learners and if they see and hear us reading off cooking directions they will learn the importance of needing to read to know how to cook new things.
     Social interaction and collaboration happens aswell when kids are introduced to cooking. They will learn that usually cooking is something that can be done in a family but also needs good teamwork.
     When children get to play with a play kitchen then they have all the free time to breakdown what all they learned when working at the real thing. When peaking in on their play you can hear the vocab they learned from working with you, and see how they work with kitchen appliances from how they watched you work with them. They can use their own imagination for creating their own recipes. Really it can be fun to take a moment to appreciate what they have begun to comprehend about nutrition and cooking safety, and following instructions, as well as add in their own creativity.

 There are so many more reasons why the kitchen is an enriching learning experience for young children and should not be trivialized. Can you think of other ways cooking with your child is educational?