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The Joy of Cooking

Do you cook with your kids? It is not as time consuming as it might seem. In fact, you may be amazed at how many things your child can do to help you with a recipe. From stirring to shredding, there are many kitchen activities your child will enjoy. Best of all, basic science, math, and literacy skills can be practiced in a joint cooking project.

As you and your child cook together, you'll not only warm the house, but also hearts and minds. The shared experience of cooking delights the senses and creates lasting, loving memories. So get out the utensils and make some soup, bake some cookies, create a pita pizza, or whip up French toast. The culinary, educational, and interpersonal benefits will abound.

Simple Steps
The recipes you choose don't have to be kid-centric. A first step to involving your child is to have him help prepare whatever you happen to be cooking. Look for a simple task your child can do. Young children are great at:

  • washing fruits and vegetables
  • shredding lettuce
  • cutting with a plastic serrated knife
  • stirring and mixing
  • beating (with assistance)
  • measuring with cups and spoons
  • pouring
  • cracking eggs (with assistance)
  • kneading
  • spreading
  • setting the table
  • serving

Cooking Is Science
Your child learns many skills by following directions, working with raw ingredients, and making predictions and observations. Science is the study of change . Cooking is a wonderful hands-on experience of creating and watching change. Every recipe is an experiment!

When you think about it, the process of following a recipe has the same steps as the scientific method:
The first step in cooking science is observation . Ask your child to look at ingredients before you use them. What does she notice? Which ingredients are powdery, soft, or liquid? How are they different? How are they the same?

The second step is making predictions . Invite your child to predict how dry ingredients will change when liquid is added. Ask him to guess what will happen to your mixture each time an ingredient is added: "How will the hot water change when we add the dry flour?" Before putting something in the oven, ask him to guess or even to draw a picture of what the dish will look like when it is done. Batter-based recipes provide many opportunities to observe and predict change.

The third step is experimentation . If you have the time and the ingredients, allow your child to try mixing and matching components. Or use a recipe that lists optional additions. Yogurt smoothies, sundaes, tossed salads, and vegetable soups are excellent for experimentation with different ingredients.

The fourth step is evaluation . This is the fun part; you get to stand back and admire your culinary masterpiece. Compare the end result with the beginning ingredients. You might ask, "Can you see the powdered ingredients now? How have they changed? What happened to the fruits when you blended them together? Where did the blueberries go?" Don't worry about getting correct or even real answers to your questions. At this age, it is most important for your child to observe and wonder in her own way. She will draw her own conclusions based on her own experience. As she cooks more and more with you, her observations, predictions, and evaluations will be more accurately based on the facts.

Cooking Is Math
For many recipes, your child needs to count and measure ingredients, make estimations, and create mathematical patterns. Ask him to count how many times he stirs the batter, to match the correct number of fruits to the numeral in the ingredient list, or to create a repeating pattern with toppings on a homemade pizza.

Even setting the table is mathematical. The process of matching a plate (bowl, spoon, etc.) to each place mat is a math skill called one-to-one correspondence. This teaches your child about equal numbers. You might ask: "How many forks do we need so that everyone in the family has one?" Or "If four people are eating, how many plates do we need?"

Cooking Is Literacy
The ability to follow the steps in a recipe is a basic literacy skill called sequencing . It helps your child learn to follow the order of events in a story. Some kids will be able to read the numbers and a few words in a recipe. Be sure to show your child the recipe while you are cooking. Even if she is not reading yet, point to the word as you use an ingredient. She will make important connections between what is on the kitchen counter and the word or number that represents it on the page. There are also lots of fun ways to teach the alphabet with food!

 
 
 
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