Cooking is a life skill, like learning how to read or swimming that our child should learn. From as simple as preparing rice to baking their favorite cookies, the experience can teach them several lessons and can benefit them in a number of ways.
Reading and Comprehension
Reading recipes is an opportunity to introduce new words and increasing their vocabulary. Understanding and doing the step-by-step instructions, adding ingredients in the correct order can help fine tune their comprehension skills.
Basic Math
Math skills learned in the kitchen is more fun. It can be as simple as counting eggs. Often recipes include fractions and measurements like 1/2 cup of water or 3/4 teaspoon of oil and so on. Kids won’t realize that they are practicing math!
Understanding Time
Teaching the concept of time is a challenge for little ones. Making use of an alarm and waiting for it when cooking is done helps them understand something very abstract.
For the older ones, they can practice adding the number of minutes to get the expected cooking time and to know when the food should be ready.
Real Life Science
Cooking is an opportunity for kids to get hands-on experience with basic science. Kids may not be able to understand scientific explanations about chemical reactions but cooking is a great time to ask questions and test out the results.
Cooking also help young kids explore their senses – hear the sound of the mixer, feel the dough when kneading them, watch the dough rise, smelling it as it bakes in the oven, and finally tasting the bread.
Builds Confidence
Knowing that they can create something that they are able to eat and enjoy builds the confidence to try new things. Cooking can be a confidence booster, even for the shy children. They can show what they can do and cooking gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Cooking is time-consuming and messy at times, more so when done with kids but the experience is nothing short of awesome. It’s one fun activity that you can integrate several lessons into and without them realizing that they are already learning!
