Do you enjoy having your children with you in the kitchen? Are you training them to put a meal on the table and to be able to feed their future family a healthy and balanced diet? These things are absolutely vital for me as a mother. It is one of my most important goals for my children is that by the time they leave my home they are very comfortable with shopping, preparing, cooking, and serving an entire meal. And there is so many other ways that you can create lessons from the kitchen with a little parental involvement.
I find that children eat better and are willing to try new things when they have helped to prepare them. Maggie is working on fractions right now and cooking is one way to show her that she really does “need to know this stuff” and that she will “use it again” many more times! We have done lessons on adding fractions by doubling a recipe even! Children don’t have as much “fear” of recipes as do many adults that never learned how to cook. They are willing to try cooking anything from bread to pie to cookies and steak.
More lessons from the kitchen that I love to use teach about the organizational and financial aspect of the kitchen as well. I try to make it a habit to include my children in as much of the kitchen process as possible. I often times ask for theirr help in menu planning and list making as well as taking them with me when I grocery shop. When we grocery shop I often let the older children take turns reading me the list, pushing the cart, and getting things off the shelf. While we are in the store I try not to just grab items or tell them “no” about getting what they ask for. The conversation is usually a running dialouge as you can imagine with 5 children 10 and under, but I like to include them in the food choices to encourage good eating habits, but also to use the terms budget and price often. I want them to know that I don’t just tell them “no” for no reason. Things cost money and money is a limited resource.
We practice reading price tags and rounding numbers as we fill our list. My children already know how to go through the sales papers and circle the items that they recognize as something that we use. I hope that by starting them now to notice the price of items, the health benifits of different foods and the importance of shopping the sales and having a menu plan, they will be better equipped to make good choices from the start when they get out on their own.
Do you include your children in the kitchen and the meal planning aspect of your home or do you like to do it all yourself? I love to cook, bake, and just be busy in the kitchen. I often feel like I have to sacrifice my desire to do it to allow the children to help me. But I know it will be so worth it in the end. I will be glad I did it.
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