From reading to math and everything in between, adults apply a variety of skills to achieve success in the kitchen. With a little guidance, children can also benefit from practicing these skills alongside us. The following list of suggested tips and activities will help your child transfer this “recipe for success” from the kitchen to the classroom!
Reading
- Cookbooks and recipes provide opportunities to practice sequencing and following directions—two skills that are crucial for standardized tests.
- Your child can develop oral fluency by reading recipes aloud to you.
- Have your child restate one or more steps in a recipe in their own words. This helps them practice recalling details and paraphrasing—skills essential for reading comprehension.
Spelling
- Dictate a shopping list to your child. If they don’t know how to spell a word, encourage them to approximate by using phonetic skills to sound out the letters they do know, and make a reasonable guess for the others. This not only helps them practice what they know, but also reveals any areas where they may need more help.
- Your child can reinforce their dictionary skills by organizing spices in alphabetical order.
Writing
- While waiting for your dish to bake, have your child write the recipe using words and/or pictures. This will help strengthen their ability to plan and write in a logical sequence.
- Have your child assist in writing a menu.
Math
- Discuss fractions as you bake a pizza, cake, or pie. Cut it into halves, quarters, and eighths.
- Younger children can create patterns with fruit or vegetables on skewers.
- Sort silverware and categorize pantry items to hone observation and classification skills.
- Prepare your child for a deeper understanding of arrays, multiplication, and division with cookies. Arrange one dozen in groups of 3, 4, and 6.
- Elapsed time is often a challenging concept for children. As you set the timer or check on a dish’s cooking time, talk about how long it has been cooking or how much longer it will need.
- A child can never have too much practice measuring, and the kitchen is the perfect place to use a variety of measuring tools.
Social Studies
- Cooking together is a great way to practice cooperation on a project.
- There’s often a bit of history or cultural lore behind various food ingredients. For example, many fruits originated in one part of the world and were brought to other areas by explorers or travelers.
- The sequencing that a child practices when retelling a recipe in the correct order will help them understand timelines.
Science
- Cooking is full of chemical reactions! For example, discuss how baking powder makes biscuits rise. The acids in the baking powder react with the liquid in the recipe, creating gas bubbles. The heat of the oven causes these bubbles to expand, making the biscuits rise.
- Children can clarify their understanding of cause-and-effect by observing relationships in cooking. For example, explain how popcorn pops. The heat turns moisture inside the kernel to steam, which expands with such force that it explodes the shell, resulting in fluffy popcorn.
- In advanced science classes, part of the curriculum focuses on safety in the lab. Many of these practices are the same as those used in the kitchen.
- Washing hands before handling food, or after handling poultry, is a great opportunity to discuss microscopic organisms.
- Make goop, inspired by Dr. Seuss’s *Bartholomew and the Oobleck*. Mix ¼ cup white glue, ¼ cup water, and a few drops of green food coloring. In a separate bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of borax into 2 cups of warm water, stirring until dissolved. Combine ¼ cup of the borax liquid into the green mixture. As you play with the goop together, discuss its physical properties. Is it a solid or a liquid?
Next time you’re tempted to send your child into the living room to watch a television program while you prepare dinner, consider the many ways cooking helps children learn. You might decide to invite your child into the coolest classroom of all—the kitchen!
