Kids Cooking & Learning!
Kids can help out with some of the cooking duties, as long as they’re old enough.
4 year-olds can stir at the counter ~ 6 year-olds can crack eggs and fill muffin tins ~ 9 year-olds can cut veggies (carefully!), and older kids can cook at the stove. Kids of all ages can help pick herbs or veggies in the garden, shell peas or beans, or husk corn.
As long as there is adult supervision, there is no reason not to have the kids help out. Plus, they learn important math skills like weights, measures, and fractions!
Also, a 4 year old can do anything they can do with craft dough. That means they can: roll dough, cut cookies and use a cookie press.
A six year old should be able to measure out your entire recipe under supervision, count out, unwrap and add bouillon cubes, cut the “x” in the top of hot cross bun and form loaves of bread.
By 9, encourage them to play restaurant. Using the food pyramid, let them help plan, watch for coupons and use them. Their math skill should be such that together you can find the best cost-per-ounce items at the store (nothing wrong with a calculator here) Set a formal table and create menus to display.
By 10, give them the responsibility of dinner once a week. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Pork chops, string beans, mac & cheese plus applesauce… sounds pretty good and is totally do-able for this age.
Remember to have fun!