Cooking With Kids-Making it part of Your Home Learning Curriculum

This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchased made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support!

       We have written so many posts about cooking with kids! Getting your kids to cook teaches and reinforces important  skills in their lives.  Here are a few for example:

• Early math skills like measuring, multiplying, fractions, adding, time...the list goes on.
• Reading and comprehension! As children learn to be able to read a recipe, they also need to be able to understand what the recipe is telling them to do! This is a real life example of how reading is important in their lives that will encourage them to improve in their reading skills.
• Following directions in order to have a good outcome.
• Science! There are so many chemical reactions in cooking and baking!  Experiments in science can also be part of your cooking class, such as capturing wild yeast to make sour dough, the reaction of baking soda and vinegar does more than make a volcano experiment when cooking. (Check out this eggless cake recipe that uses those two ingredients!)
• Healthy Eating and what foods are good for your body and which ones should be eaten sparingly.
• Hygiene!  Why is it important to have clean hands and a clean work environment for cooking?
• Motor Skills!  Learning to manage the tools in cooking, from stirring to breaking eggs to learning the claw hand for cutting all take practice and patience.  Cooking engages the left and the right brain! 
• Self Confidence grows as your child has successful outcomes with cooking.
• The adult skill of being able to take care of oneself by cooking your own food will be a skill they will be thankful for throughout their lives! 

     This year, Lindsey and Alicia are home schooling their children.  Cooking is a favorite part of the curriculum this year.  Of course, neither of them waited until they were home schooling to begin enjoying cooking with their kids.  They both started when the children were much younger.  Anyone can enjoy the fun and learning of cooking with your children even if you don't homeschool.  Check out these posts: 

Adrian and Sofia making Beefy Ratatouille!

Emily baking cookies, she started very young!

     For this school year, Lindsey discovered a wonderful cookbook to use with Emily as they cook through this school year together! It is called the Cooking & Baking Class Box Set and you can order it on Amazon! 
       Lindsey loves that this set comes with a cooking and a baking set!  And, it comes with a little cutting board as well.  My granddaughter is in the first grade now.  She is a good reader, and she can read and follow all of the directions very well.  The beginning of the book teaches basic cooking knowledge and explains the cooking terms that the children may be using as they cook.  The recipes are rated from "one spoon"  to "three spoons" to let you know the level a skill that will be used with that particular recipe.  

     The other evening, little Emily was going to come over and stay with grandpa and I for a little while and she asked if we could cook something together out of her cookbook.  Of course, I said yes!  She let me know what ingredients that I would need to have on hand.  She chose a pasta salad recipe.  

  Emily was able to slice the cheese with a butter knife, snip the basil, do the tossing, add the seasonings and all I had to do was cook the pasta and slice the tomatoes with a sharp knife.  The salad was very delicious!  Since we were going to be eating dinner anyway, we turned the night into a little dinner party with more family members.  We added pork chops and watermelon to round out the meal.   We tried to add rolls, but unfortunately we discovered that my oven is broken and we couldn't bake the rolls!  

Here is Emily helping to form the rolls that couldn't be baked!

Luckily, Maddy was able to take the rolls home and bake them there to share with her roommate, so they didn't go to waste.  
     Everyone pronounced the meal delicious and a wonderful time was had by all! 
​   Emily went through the cookbook with me and showed me what she had already made.  I was amazed at the fun ideas that are in it that will encourage kids to cook.  Emily is so proud of all that she has done. 

     Some of the recipes do require cutting.  So far Emily has only cut things with a butter knife.  Alicia has taught her 9 year old son to use the claw hand so that he can safely use a sharper knife with supervision.  Amazon does have some knife sets that are safer and made for teaching younger children how to handle them.  

Set for younger children

I like this set for older children. It comes with a guard to protect their fingers and the hole in handle for gripping seems like a great idea to protect the cutting hand as well.

     Emily forgot to bring along her apron when she came to my house to cook.  But, it does my heart good to know that she and my other granddaughters that I've made aprons for enjoy using them!  Here is the link to the simple pattern for these cute aprons. 

Emily has grown into hers since this picture was taken!

     If you make cooking fun, soon your kids will have the confidence to create great recipes on their own!  Remember these posts from my 13 year old granddaughter? 

More Cooking Pics with More Grandkids

     My grandchildren are so cute and I could post all of them all over this page! 
     I hope you will take advantage of this great activity with your kids and grandchildren and help them learn so much in a fun way! Pick up the Cooking & Baking Class Set to get yourself started! One piece of sweet evidence that I have that kids love cooking with their parents and grandparents is a special card made for me by my granddaughter Amelia.  Her mom asked her to draw something that she likes to do with Grandma.  She drew a picture of the two of us baking cookies!  I loved it! 

Here are a few other kids cooking posts! 

• Grasshopper Pie
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
• The Virtual Cupcake Nailed It Challenge