Chapter 5:
Kids In The Kitchen-Monster Toast
Synopsis
Does your youngster perpetually bother you while you're making food in the kitchen?
Are you sick of hearing your youngster complain about the food you make?
Here's my hint: Involve your youngster in the cooking process!
I know, I know -- occasionally shavers make a mess in the kitchen. Everything takes longer to do and what if thetykes ruin the recipe?
Any or all of the above might be true, but the potential for play and learning outbalance the risks! And you might discover that you love it, likewise!
Youngsters love being involved with cooking food. That's partially why they're so likely to get in the way in your kitchen.
They're interested in what you're doing, while you might be disregarding them.
So instead of push them away, pull them in.
Let The Monsters Learn To Make Monsters
Cooking activities are suitable for youngsters aged 2 and up. Plainly, the sort of involvement and learning is different for a 2 year-old and a 5 year-old, but both may be involved in the operation, learn while cooking and have fun!
Her are some of the many ways youngsters learn through cooking.
- Abiding by Directions: Teach your youngster what a recipe is and that one must "abide by the directions" in order for the recipe to work. Youngsters learn that you must read instructions and follow them in a particular order to acquire the result you want.
- Easy Math: equate amounts. Are we sticking in more flour or more baking powder? What is larger, a half cup or a whole cup? How many half cups do you require to equal a whole cup? Grow his sequencing skills. Ask him, "What do we do 1st... 2nd... Finally?"
- Sensorial Awareness: utilize ingredients with an assortment of textures, smells, and tastes. Let him sense the difference between rice and beans. Let him savor the difference between sugar and salt. Have him smell the differences between assorted spices and the sweet smell of vanilla extract.
- Word Enrichment: heighten your youngsters’ knowledge of ingredients and particulars found around your kitchen. Flour, sugar and eggs might seem like daily words to you, but they're not basic to your 3 year-old.
- Conception Development: better your child's understanding of constructs: Hard vs. soft, liquid vs. Firm, hot vs. cold, raw vs. baked, in the bowl vs. out of the bowl, fast vs. slow, and so forth.
- Cause and Effect kinships: step-up your youngsters’ ability to answer questions like: "What occurs if . . . (you add juice rather than water, you utilize bananas rather than strawberries)?" Youngsters may learn how adding, excluding or altering one ingredient can change the total product.
- Cooperation: better your youngsters’ ability to work together with you and with other kids. This admits waiting for his turn and having fun in a joint action.
This recipe is taken from the book Kinder-Krunchies, Healthy Snack Recipes for Children by Karen S. Jenkins. This book is distributed exclusively by Discovery Toys.
