Why cook with young children? What do they learn from cooking activities? Cooking in the kindergarten classroom is a highly motivating activity. It gives children a chance to partake in real life tasks and reap real life benefits. It enables children to grow socially as they cooperate and share cooking duties while working towards a common goal. It gives children an opportunity to develop both small and large muscle control and allows children to use all of their senses. There are many developmental benefits to cooking with children. They range from basic math, science, and language skills to increased self confidence.

This recipe was given to me by Cory Boles, another kindergarten teacher at our school.

Ingredients:

Juice of half a lemon
Water equal to amount of juice
1 teaspoon of sugar

Steps:
1. Roll lemon on table top until lemon is soft.
2. Squeeze lemon half as hard as you can over a small clear plastic cup.
3. Add water.
4. Add sugar.
5. Stir.
6. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 hotdog weiner per child
Ketchup and mustard for dipping


Steps:

Each child slices his/her hotdog from the middle to the end into eight sections.

The teacher puts each sliced hotdog into boiling water.

As the hotdog cooks, the "tentacles" curl up and the hotdog resembles an octopus.