Benefits of Kids in the Kitchen
Always looking for teachable moments, life in the kitchen provides opportunities for so many lessons. As if you need any more reasons to get your kids in the kitchen, beyond the additional help and spending time together, there are so many educational benefits that cooking can support, always with a delicious reward at the end.
For those with younger kiddos working on skills for pre-k and kindergarten, the kitchen is a great place to support learning following directions and step-by-step instructions.
Here are some key benefits, to starting your kiddos out early in the kitchen:
Helps to build basic skills:
By simply counting ingredients, measuring liquid with a measuring cup or following along with the recipe, you are helping your kiddos to better understand simple and basic math. Whether your little ones are old enough to read along with the recipe or simply listen to the steps, those are two skills that will help in everyday situations. You are also teaching your kids that the patience of waiting for the recipe to cook, always has a rewarding end result – and hopefully delicious too.
Helps to teach about the five human senses:
The kitchen is the best place for kids to learn about the five human senses – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. There is no other place where you can use all of your senses in just one sitting. Have your kids help along with the entire process, from measuring out the pizza dough, to watching it rise in the oven, smelling the dough as it cooks, hearing the timer when it sounds and tasting the delicious final product of homemade pizza!
Promotes a more versatile palate:
We all know kids can be picky when it comes to food; no surprise there. But a lot of times, kids just do not know what they are missing until they try it! Well instead of forcing them to eat Grandma’s broccoli casserole that looks unappealing, have them be a part of the process from start to end, where they may learn about what actually goes into the recipe and have a change of heart. The kitchen is a great place to introduce new ingredients, encourage our kiddos to taste them and watch as they start to change their minds on what they refuse to eat. We all have to start somewhere, so why not from the beginning.
Remember when cooking with kids, you may have to build-in some additional steps to properly read and review each recipe, just to make sure your kids understand the process as well as kitchen safety and rules. We understand our kids can have a very minimal attention span at times and other days just completely non-existent. So try to be patient as the kitchen becomes a more comfortable and familiar place within your household.
Please be sure to share with us all the ways your family chooses so go Lo.Co in the kitchen, by using the hashtag #CookingWithLoCo. We can’t wait to be a part of your family’s new-found fun in the kitchen.
Enjoy!
