In almost 14 years of parenting, I have done a ton of cooking with my kids and now they do a lot of cooking on their own. Some of it has been very formal and intentional in its Montessori application and other parts have been more free-form.
Keep reading for a snapshot of what those 14 years, rearranged from tots to tweens looks like in action.
I tried to count how many different activities are in just this one video, but I lost track. Chopping, mixing, tasting, pounding, peeling, picking, reading cookbooks, baking, preserving, flipping, frying, ….the list goes on. When I went through my photo library to find pictures for this video, I couldn’t believe how many there were. More than half of them didn’t even make the final video.
Whether you are just getting started with cooking with your kids or looking for some new inspiration, here are a couple archived posts with ideas.
The Preschool & Kindergarten Quick Start Guide has a great list of kid-sized practical life tools to get you started. While most of the materials in the PreK/K guide can be extended up or down, there are also ideas and tips in the Infant & Toddler Quick Start Guide and the Elementary Quick Start Guide. The Smoothie Hour has ideas for incorporating kid cooking and nutrition into your daily routines. The Banana Blender Cookie Recipe is a free picture download to help your child follow a recipe. The Family Chopped Challenge is a fun way that we took our kids love for food prep and combined it with some new
Does starting out on your own sound entirely too overwhelming? Let Katie from Kitchen Stewardship teach your kids instead! We have taken advantage of tons of her freebies over the years and I trust her big time on this one! She will not disappoint you with her methods and I love that she teaches kids by using real food. Your kids will not learn how to assemble an extra sugary snack mix here!
Cooking with kids is not only fun, but FUNctional. The more your children have the opportunity to practice, the more likely it is that you will someday soon be treated to breakfast in bed, or just breakfast period. I haven’t actually made breakfast at our house in months. Although, I can’t promise breakfast will look like the header picture…. in my experience its more like the toddlers covered in flour shown in the video!
Do you cook with your kids? What is your favorite thing to make with them? Where do you struggle? Leave me a note – I love hearing from readers!
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting our work here. It has been linked to the Montessori Monday link- up at Living Montessori Now.
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