5 Educational Benefits of Baking With Your Littles

Sometimes it seems that the richest learning opportunities we can offer our little ones lie right under our noses, or in this case, fill our noses with sweet smells from the kitchen. Yes, that's right, cooking and baking (because let's face it, that one's almost always more fun) are wonderful ways to offer educational opportunities for your little ones. The kitchen offers an abundance of experience for little learners that will help them in a multitude of ways. Still not convinced? Well, keep reading, because I will tell you the tips I use to maximize this activity for my littles and explain five areas of early childhood education that this activity enhances!

Tips to get started

1. Take inventory

Make sure you have all the ingredients you need beforehand, in the house. This will reduce the risk of disappointed bakers if you have to stop to go to the grocery store.

2. Schedule this During Play Time

For little learners, you should be approaching this as an enriching play activity. As such, try to do this during a time when you would otherwise allow your child to do free play during the day. 

3. Lower Those Expectations

This is NOT a time to fine tune that new tart you've been dying to try or put the finishing touches on the macaroons for an upcoming dinner party. Instead this is an exploration through guided play, so if the sprinkles are a bit overdone (which believe me they WILL be) it's perfectly okay!

1. Genre Knowledge

Every time a text serves a different purpose, or is written in a different way, we label it a genre. In school, children will need to know all kinds of genres from narratives (stories) to informational, and everything between. Recipes are actually and officially known as procedural text.

Besides ringing your hands to the ceiling as you're putting together IKEA furniture and deciphering the directions, you'll notice that there are not a plethora of times a child can be introduced to this genre in such a meaningful way, than in the kitchen. As such, take the time to point out the different textual features. Point out where the ingredients are listed and how the recipe is divided into steps. This will be done naturally as you work through the recipe and you say phrases such as, "Now we're at step 5."

2. Math Practice

Interestingly enough while completing a recipe, you are able to practice two different kinds of mathematical skills with your littles: number recognition and measurement

Number Recognition

As you're reading through the recipe with your little one, you can enhance their number recognition skills by pointing to numbers within the recipe (whether is be 3, 2, 1/2, or 1/4) and reading them together. As they get better at reading numbers, you can just point and they can start to take over. It's wonderful authentic practice!

Measurement

Whenever you're leveling off a 1/2 cup of flour, or pouring 2 Tablespoons of oil with your little one, you're actually giving them excellent hands-on experience with measurement concepts! Later on in school, they'll learn to convert cups to pints to quarts to gallons, etc. But by giving them this hands-on experience and understanding of just how much a cup is, it will help them when they are doing these measurements later.

3. Fine Motor Skills

A pinch of sugar, a dash of salt, and a heaping of fine motor skills are refined as you work through just about any recipe. Just having your little scoop out the baking powder, level it off, and turn it into the bowl engages an entire series of fine motor skills! Using a whisk, stirring with a spoon, or hand held mixer (with supervision) are also wonderful ways to give them practice. That doesn't even include the delicious wonders of placing chocolate chips on top of muffins or decorating cakes and cookies with icing and sprinkles!

4. Reading

Anytime and every time you can read aloud to your littles is a huge plus and the kitchen is just another way you can add more reading into their lives. As you work through the recipe, make sure to put your finger under the words in the text and show your child the words as you're reading them. Older children will be able to sound out familiar words or read sight words along with you. No matter the age of your child, reading aloud to them in this context is valuable, because they can understand that reading is essential throughout all areas of life.

5. Sensory

Since recipes can range anywhere from oily, to sticky, and even gritty, cooking with your littles is a great way to help them engage sensory learning too. Whether you are putting olive oil on their hands as they flatten out the fresh pizza dough, or you are having them roll peanut butter cookies into balls and then roll the ball into granulated sugar, you're giving them a variety of feelings to process from texture to temperature! All of these experiences are perfect for engaging their growing minds and their vocabulary as they will immediately want to describe what they are feeling.

But really the true treat...

is that once the cookies are done and the pizza gobbled, you'll be able to know that not only did you spend educational time with your little one, but also quality time as well. Cooking and baking aren't just wonderful ways to feed your littles' tummies, but also to feed the growing relationship you have with them. I hope with these tips that you enjoy cooking with your littles as much as I do!