Unless you’re a professional culinary instructor, there’s no need to pretend that teaching a child to cook is a simple endeavor. Teaching a child how to handle a knife securely, properly wash fruits and vegetables, and follow a recipe without shortcuts takes patience. Time spent teaching your children to cook, on the other hand, is time well spent. It not only gives you peaceful opportunities to engage with your child, but it also has a slew of additional advantages. You can increase their confidence, teach math and science, and impart cultural awareness.
1. It is a Crucial Life Skill
I’m glad I learned basic cooking skills when I was young. Many of the women I know lack confidence in the kitchen. This leads to them struggling to prepare healthy meals for their families regularly.
2. Assists in the development of relationships
Cooking together improves cooperation and communication among siblings and allows parents to spend more time with their children. When a batch of cookies is on the line, it’s incredible how well brothers and sisters can work together.
3. Emphasizes the importance of real food ( Pizza Party)
When children prepare dishes from home, they can perceive the difference between natural and processed foods for themselves. Talk about the health benefits of the healthful foods God created while you’re cooking. There is no better place to teach them this than playing Pizza Party. This game gives a greater understanding of ingredients. Kids use a whole range of ingredients to make the pizzas.
Tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, ham, mushrooms, basil, and pepperoni are among the items to create personalized pizzas for guests. This game is more practical than many others out there and is simple to play. Kids in second and third grades should like it. In contrast, students in higher grades may find it tedious until they graduate to higher levels. Here they will have the option of preparing more difficult pizzas in addition to the standard Margherita, marinara, and pepperoni pizzas.
4. Reducing Picky Eating
You can even persuade the most averse eaters to try new meals if they helped prepare them. Bring a picky eater into the kitchen if you have one. Be patient — it will work eventually, even if it doesn’t work right away!
5. Helps to improve fine motor skills
Stirring, rolling, measuring, and sprinkling are just a few examples of kitchen operations that allow young toddlers to practice fine motor skills.
6. Requires Following Instructions (Farm Story)
What child wouldn’t benefit from some additional practice in this area? They’re motivated to get it perfect because if they don’t, dinner will taste horrible! Furthermore, you can develop their skills by playing Farm Story.
Farm Story is a connect kids game. You swap veggies with adjacent vegetables above, below, or their side to link three or more in a row. This game is similar to a simplified and less addicting version of Candy Crush without power-ups and social pressure. At each stage, players have two minutes to collect vegetables. This game uses the same mechanics as the Donuts game, except instead of multicolored sprinkled doughnuts, it shows tomatoes, carrots, peppers, and other veggies. Because the color of the tomatoes and peppers are the same, and the peppers’ shape is similar to carrots. This game is more challenging to scan visually than the colorful Donut game.
7. Practices Reading
With very little help, my kindergartener can now read a recipe, gather her supplies, and begin preparing it. She enjoys the feeling of accomplishment, and I’m looking forward to how much easier my job has been!
8. Practices Math
Cooking necessitates a great deal of arithmetic, including simple counting (three tablespoons), more than/less than (add a little more), fractions (1/2 cup), and so on.
9. A Space for Creativity
Kids enjoy deciding what to have for supper, what to put in the fruit salad, and just about any other aspect of the meal. Older children may show their creativity through recipe invention and food presentation. I adore watching my six-year-old design her lunch plate as if it were an art piece.
10. Provides an opportunity to be praised and encouraged
We all know how much children like being congratulated for their achievements. Teaching children to cook allows parents to praise and encourage their efforts in the kitchen. Other family members can weigh in when the mom reveals which child assisted with each course at the dinner table. I adore seeing my kids’ faces light up when their Daddy compliments them on their work.
11. Opportunities to Serve
Youngsters must see food as a means to show loving care for others. It can be through creating a snack for a sibling or helping make dinner for a friend in need.
