Getting the kids involved in the kitchen can be daunting – there can be dangerous and sharp items, and kids are magnets that can attract a mess. While this can be true, the positives greatly outweigh the negatives! Getting the kids involved can help them to gain life skills such as cooking and kitchen safety, develop their fine and gross motor skills, and encourage the exploration of food.
6 months – 2 years:
● Position them in a high chair or booster seat to watch the cooking or mixing process during meal time. This can be great for watching the cooking processes and engaging with the family!
● Explore and play with the different foods involved during the cooking process. Making a mess is a part of sensory play! Touching, smelling, smearing, smudging, licking, tasting, and even spitting out our food are all very normal parts of the eating process.
3 - 4 years:
● Give your child an empty mixing bowl and spoon, and encourage them to mimik the actions they can see in the kitchen.
● Explore and play with food to make imaginary scenarios or stories, or try different foods with various textures, shapes, and colours. e.g. make a house out of different-sized pieces of fruit, and try biting them to see if they’re crunchy, soft, chewy, or hard!
5 – 8 years:
● Encourage assistance with mixing the bowl, mashing potatoes, washing fruit/veggies, cutting up softer foods with a child-safe knife or fruit cutter, or rolling things out. This is not only great for developing fine motor skills and bimanual integration, but also for practising kitchen safety!
● Encourage them to get involved in making or dressing up the dinner. This can include sprinkling cheese over pasta, making their pizza with ingredient options, and setting the table for family dinner.
● Helping carry in the groceries, and put items away. These tasks involve heavy loading, which can be very regulating for some children’s nervous systems. Also, carrying bags or items is excellent for building gross motor skills and hand strength required for fine motor skill building.
8 - 12 years:
● Following instructions to bake some cookies, or handwrite out instructions to follow them. You can encourage this by getting them to search for a cooking video on YouTube and writing simple set by step on what is required. For some children with lower reading and writing skills, you can have them draw visual instructions to work on sequencing.
● Creating a grocery list, writing it down, and shopping for them. Encourage the child to help unpack the groceries as well, so they know where different foods are if they are hungry.
● Encouraging a fun, “kids cook” dinner party. Your child can write the menu, create the grocery list, help shop for the ingredients, and make the dinner with a caregiver's assistance.
● Encourage your child to assist in making their lunch box for school. This can allow the opportunity to take about always and sometimes foods.