Saturday, September 13th, is "Kids Take Over The Kitchen" day. This is an awesome opportunity for kids to get their hands dirty and learn from start to finish what goes into preparing a meal. There are several reasons why getting your kids into the kitchen is a great idea, and I go over the most important (in my opinion). So, get out the aprons and let the kids do the cooking this weekend.
1. Cooking helps develop planing and organizational skills. Think about how much goes into preparing a meal. You have to think about what to cook, do the shopping to get all of the ingredients, prepare all of those ingredients, and then cook them up. Helping your kids through this process will teach them how to break down a large project into smaller tasks and walk through the process to the finish line. Let them pick what they are going to cook, figure out what ingredients are needed and what ingredients you already have. Take them to the store to get the missing elements and then come home and put it together.
2. Cooking builds self esteem. What better feeling of satisfaction than looking at a meal that you created from start to finish. To be able to stand back and see what all of your hard work actually looks like. That feels pretty darn good!
3. Cooking helps to broaden a picky palate. A child will be more likely to try a new food if they had a hand in preparing said food. It doesn't mean they will necessarily like it, but they will at least try it, and hey - that's a step in the right direction.
4. Cooking teaches math skills. What better way to drill fractions, division and multiplication into a kids head than to have to convert a recipe. The best part is, they probably won't even realize they are doing math until you point it out to them.
5. Cooking teaches reading skills. While we are on the subject of ninja learning - how about that reading. Learning to read a recipe and interpret what it's telling you to do is an invaluable skill. You can have your own little reading lesson without having to feel like it's homework time.
6. Cooking is a lifelong skill. I can't tell you how many people my kids ran into in college that couldn't cook a basic meal. There wasn't much happening beyond the Top Ramen and boxed Macaroni and Cheese. Teaching your child to cook will give them a skill they will use the rest of their lives.
7. Cooking is great bonding time. You get to spend time with your kids. Nuff said on that.
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