Monday, August 20, 2012

Kids in the Kitchen for Fun Playtime

Welcome to Monday and the first post in a series this week on the fun play time of kids cooking. We look forward to sharing with you and hope you find lots of fun ideas!

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Fun can be had in the kitchen at all ages.

I believe kitchen play gives children
A greater appreciation and understanding of food helping to develop a lifelong love of food and healthy habits.
Provides wonderful bonding opportunities
Improves motor skills as they can do simple tasks at each stage of development

Please see some ideas below for the various stages of development.

Babies

Personal experience at this age is when I am making my own baby food or preparing dinner the girls at 8 months are fascinated to sit on the kitchen floor with a spoon, spatula and bowl to bang around with as I cook.

They are to little to help but they love the inclusion and watching Mummy.

It also gives me the opportunity to show and explain new things and words. I show them each vegetable, let them touch and smell it and name it.

Toddlers

The same can be said for toddlers as babies in explaining food and the steps involved.

At this age you can let them be a big kid helping Mummy it will do wonders for their confidence. They can do things like hold the bowl (you may want to use a non slip mat underneath just in case), hold the beater with you or press the mixer button.

At this age let their creativity take over with decorating cookies or cupcakes. I remember a friends daughters 3rd birthday when they let the children decorate their own cakes the squeals of delight and the big messy smiles as they devoured the creations was priceless.

A little older on the toddler scale let them mash foods for you in helping to prepare the family meal.

Primary 

This age you can let the children become more hands on.

I remember helping prepare summer salads with veggies from the garden at this age. I'd wash the vegetables, tear the lettuce and shell peas.

You can also show children how to measure things out and add the ingredients at this age - another benefit is using numerical skills.

Make a fruit salad using a dull blunt knife for the upper primary children they can cut easy fruits such as banana, strawberries and kiwi fruit for example.

Do you have other ideas or suggestions for kids in the kitchen? Please leave us a comment.

Happy Play Times :-)

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