Belle, age 2, loves to get involved in the kitchen, and to keep her occupied and away from breaking dishes, Mommy has started teaching her to cook and bake. Developmentally, this is surprisingly appropriate for a toddler.
For now, we are focusing on the cognitive skills of extending her attention span and understanding cause/effect; the fine motor skills of adding ingredients and mixing; receptive language skills of following directions; expressive language skills of labeling ingredients and actions; and the general life skill of kitchen safety and cleaning. As she grows, we can introduce kitchen math (doubling), kitchen chemistry (rising agents), kitchen literacy (reading recipes), and skills like budgeting and nutrition. We’ll also introduce growing and harvesting our own food, prep hygiene, planning and follow through, and time management. When we pull out my great-grandma’s recipes, we’ll talk about food history. There’s a lifetime of learning that can happen in a kitchen, and Belle’s interest makes it very easy for us to use it as a tool for experiential learning in all subjects.
Plus we love to eat.
Join us on this adventure!