Photo by: Baying Hound

Kids In the Kitchen: More Than Just Learning How to Cook

by Brenda Thompson of "Meal Planning Magic"
Photo by: Baying Hound

For as long as I can remember I’ve been cooking in the kitchen. I’d have to say it really took off when I was a teenager. I even planned themed parties for my friends and all the food. So it was only natural that when I had children of my own I would include them in the kitchen as soon as I could.

My children have been cooking with me pretty much since the time they could stand up. We started with a simple recipe: banana bread. What kid wouldn’t like mashing up a banana? Now that they are a bit older, they help in lots of different ways in the kitchen. The added bonus: they are much more likely to try new foods (or even old foods) when they’ve helped prepare them!

When I first started bringing my kids into the kitchen, I mainly viewed it as another way to spend time together. But over the years, I have discovered that it is an opportunity for them to learn so much more. They learn patience as they wait for me to measure out ingredients or while things bake or cook until they are done. Vocabulary is boosted when they learn new words for the ingredients you use or techniques. As they grow, practicing reading the recipe helps them learn new words and make the comprehension connection when they see how everything goes together. Math sneaks its way into meal prep too; counting the number of ingredients to include, learning about different units of measurement and more. Practicing teamwork is an added bonus as they learn to take turns with you or with sibling helping too. For young children, motor skills are enhanced when they learn how to pour, mix, roll and stir. New textures are also introduced with the opportunity to notice differences between liquids, dry ingredients, batter and doughs. Other shapes and textures can be noted in the ingredients as well like different types of fruit, nuts, whole grains and more.

Tips for Getting Started:

  • Use plastic bowls, measuring spoons & cups and other equipment, if possible.
  • Expect a mess! And at the end, use that mess to teach them how to clean up—a valuable life skill!
  • Be patient—kids sometimes take a long time and are messier than you might be.
  • Bring cooking down to kid level; use a small table to prepare on or provide a chair or stool to stand on.
  • Check your moods before starting—your child’s and yours! Choose a time when everyone is well-rested and in a good mood.
  • Prepare ingredients in advance, if possible like pre-measuring ingredients, chopping items, etc. This will make things go smoother and more quickly—especially since kids’ attention spans can sometimes be really short!
  • Teach children that ovens and stoves are hot and that is for the grown-ups. I taught my children to stand in the same spot on a nearby rug every time I opened and closed the oven—it’s a habit they still practice today!

Are you anxious to bring your kids into the kitchen with you but need a little guidance on what they can do? Here are a few guidelines by age:

One- to two-year-olds can:
Dump in premeasured dry ingredients and help stir
Help shape cookies and other dough
Tell you when the timer goes off
Hand you an egg or other ingredients

Three to four-year-olds can also:
Help measure ingredients
Help crack eggs and mix ingredients
Help pour batter into a pan
Hold a mixer with you (his hand under yours)
Arrange food on a serving plate

Five- to six-year-olds can also:
Help read a recipe
Learn how to measure and mix dry ingredients
Crack eggs and learn how to separate yolk from white
Learn how to safely use mixer or wire whisk
Set a timer

Seven-to eight-year-olds can also:
Read a recipe out loud
Follow most of a recipe with your help and supervision, except placing things in or pulling them out of an oven

Nine-year-olds and up can:
Follow a recipe without help

Now go make some memories and yummy food and get your kids into the kitchen with you!

Brenda is a wife, mom, volunteer, crafter and freelance writer making her home in the suburbs of Houston. She loves sharing ways that everyone can get into the kitchen and learn how to make a little magic along the way. She connects with others through her blog.

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31 Comments

Great tips! I love cooking with our girls, I give our 18 month old wooden spoons and some cheerios in a plastic container to "stir" and "measure" while my 3 year old and I bake. Then they both get a spatula to lick in the end. The photos and memories are worth the extra mess in the end :)

My kids love to help me cook. I do all of my baking from scratch and I've let my daughter help me make bread by adding the flour or sugar to my mixing bowl and I've let my son help me stir the brownie mix; I never leave them alone, especially when my son is helping to make the brownies as I don't use a box mix and I have to melt the cocoa powder and butter in a sauce pan. They love it!

My girls started out cooking and baking with me from tiny as well. I bought a mezzaluna just for them, so they could chop things without any danger of cutting themselves. As long as both hands are on the handles of the mezzaluna, they are safe. I would highly recommend getting one for anyone with small children who love to help in the kitchen.

I found cooking to be a great help in the process of blending a family split by divorce with a new spouse.

My new family came with a pre-teen boy, and 8-year old boy=girl twins, and when I first came on the scene, the were not happy campers. There behavior was awful.

But then one day, I ashed the 8-year old boy (who acted out the most) if he wanted to help me fix dinner. He made the mashed potatoes with supervision, and he was so proud of the result...

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This is a great commentary...my kids love to help. Especially when I make cakes...scraping the bowl at the end is the fun part.

All the Best

Cooking/baking with my son has been one of the best ways to bond and teach him, I think everyone should try it with their children. We create in the kitchen several times a week. It's fun to watch him move the ingredients around with a spoon pretending he's a bulldozer and then see his reaction when he sees the final product cooked, especially cookies.

Great article... I have found everything to be true. And the love of cooking developed and cooking skills honed in these early years are PRICELESS. Will make many a marriage rich... in many different ways.

I have always enjoyed sharing my love for food and cooking with family and friends. Now tjat I have kids of my own, it's a fantastic way to create shared memories. To take this further I invie Moms to bring their kids to my meal assembly store to "cook" together. Som Moms simply don't have the time or the tools to have an at-home cooking experince with their kids, let alone on a regular basis...

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My daughter has been helping me cook since she was around 3. One of her favorite things to make use to be meatballs. She thought it was cool to be able to put her hands (after washing them of course) into the meat and mixing everything together and them shaping them. Now she is at the stage that she thinks it's kind of gross. lol She'll still do it but the look on her face is pirceless.
She is big enough now (9) that sometimes she likes fixing the whole dinner by herself...

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My 4 yo daughter and I have been cooking together for years now. Like you, it started as a way to spend time together. As a working mom, I didn't want to pick her up from day care to just plop her down somewhere again while I cook. So, I gave her a butter knife (and a long lecture on which knives she can and cannot use), a cutting board and veggies to cut up and put in a salad...

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After this kind of exposure in the kitchen I teach my children how to cook breakfast. We start with different ways you can cook and egg (scrambled first). 8 years old or 3rd grade was when I started this with all my children, Developmentally it is a time when they should start learning to be self sufficient. This sets a healthy habit of eating a healthy breakfast every morning and it takes onne thing off your list of things to do...

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This is fantastic! Having been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution recently and been shocked at how few people still cook and how few children have basic kitchen skills, it's refreshing to see the other side discussed. I too have always loved to cook and so does my husband, so we plan on getting our children excited about it too. Thanks for the guidelines on age appropriate ways to get them involved!

OMG! This is such a timely post. It must be in the air. I am a personal chef and health counselor and lately while my older son is doing homework I have my 3 year old in the kitchen helping to prepare everything. He is a really picky eater and, I find, that when he had a hand in preparing the meal, he is much more likely to eat it. I was thinking about doing what I do with adults with children of stay at home moms, to interest them in eating more fruits and veggies...

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I agree! Love this article. I have great memories of baking homemade bread each summer with my mother. Now, my 2 and 5 year old LOVE helping in the kitchen too. One tip I have is to pre-measure ingredients and then put them in a larger measuring cup so your child can pour the ingredients into a mixing bowl without the fear of spilling too much of the contents.

Our homeschooled daughter learned fractions, additions, subtraction and division, all while learning to bake. Honestly, she never did become a math whiz, though she graduates this May from one of the top colleges in the country. She can, however, whip up a meal on a moment's notice, which never fails to impress her starved-for-real-food friends at school. I think there are lessons to be learned in everything you do with children, which is why everything you do is so important.

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