Kitchen Education

Cooking is a great way to explore the world around you. 

• Talk about taste with your children: caster sugar and salt look similar, but do they taste the same? Smell the vanilla essence and then the vinegar, then taste them both.
• If you ever bake cookies, invest in cookie cutters that are shaped like letters of the alphabet, or use a knife to cut out your own letter shapes. You can also roll snakes from the dough and form them into letters and numbers. 
• Weighing and measuring cake ingredients is a fun way to learn the basics of maths: is a teaspoon more than a tablespoon? It looks larger, now let’s check. A teaspoon is 5 ml, while a tablespoon is 12.5 ml. Which is more, 5 or 12.5? 
•  Which looks more, 100g of sugar or 100g of flour? Which one weighs more? 
• How long is 20 minutes (the time it usually takes to bake muffins)? Can we manage to wash the dishes and clean the floor in that time? What time is it now and what time do the muffins need to be taken out of the oven? 
• Take 20 raisins out of their bag. Put 13 of them into the batter. Can you guess how many are left in your hand? 
• What is a square? Cut the ham for the pizza topping into squares. What’s a cube? Cut the cheese into cubes. 
• You can also start teaching logic and consequence: we have one measuring cup, shall we first measure the flour or the milk? What do you think will happen if we pour flour into a cup that’s still wet from the milk? And, of course, what will happen to the muffins if we don’t take them out of the oven when the timer goes off? 
• Why are some foods are “everyday foods” and others “treats”?

This way of learning is particularly important to tactile and kinesthetic children. Is your child tactile or kinesthetic? Find out.