Cooking With Your Child
Mary Whitfield, Early Childhood Educator

Cooking with your child can be fun and rewarding as well as a learning experience.  Through helping your child to read the recipe and measure ingredients your child learns match concepts such as quantity and comparisons and size.  You’re teaching about science when you encourage them to use their senses to discover information about different types of foods.  Following directions and creating a recipe helps to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment which builds self-esteem.

In each recipe encourage your child to participate as much as possible.  He/she can help do such things as measure ingredients, crack the eggs over the bowl or cut up fruit with a butter knife.

Cooking with your child creates family time and a chance to pass down recipes to your children.  Do it at a time when you’re not rushed and have back-up patience available.  Be sure to have your children wash their hands before beginning.

Fruit Kabobs

Ingredients:
          Cantaloupe             Honeydew melon               Grapes
          Strawberries         Apples                            Oranges
          Cheese

Directions:

1. Cut a variety of types of fruit into cubes or small pieces. 
2. Have your child place a mixture of the fruits and cheese onto a skewer.
3. What a fun way to eat fruit!

Pizza

Ingredients:
          English muffin or roll of biscuits
          Pizza sauce
          Shredded Mozzarella cheese
          Other toppings of choice

Directions:

1. If using a biscuit show your child how to use your fingers or a rolling pin to flatten it out.
2. Spread a spoonful of sauce on the muffin or biscuit.
3. Cover with cheese and any other desired toppings.
4. Bake at 4.25 until the cheese is melted.

Sugar Cookies

Purchase a roll of cookie dough or use the following recipe.
Ingredients:
          1 cup margarine or butter
          2 cups sugar
          4 eggs
          2 tsp. cream or milk
          4 ½ cups flour
          3 tsp. baking powder
          1 tsp. nutmeg

Directions:
Have your child help to add the ingredients.

1. Cream the margarine and sugar together.
2. Add eggs and cream.
3. Add flower, baking powder and nutmeg.
4. Mix together and chill the dough for at least 2 hours.
5. Keep flour spread on the table and on the rolling pin to prevent sticking.
6. Help your child to roll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters.  The dough should be thick when you cut the shapes.  If the dough is too thin the cookies may burn.
7. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
8. Bake for 7 minutes at 425 degrees.

Cheese & Pretzel Shape Builders

Ingredients:
Cheese cubes
Pretzel sticks

Directions:
Push the ends of pretzels into cheese cubes to make different shapes, such as squares, triangles, rectangles.  You can also work on making letters or numbers.

Alphabet Breadsticks

Ingredients:
Roll of refrigerated breadstick dough

Directions:
Help your child shape the breadsticks into various letters of the alphabet.  The first letter of your child’s name is a good place to start.

Additional Resources:
"Teaching Snacks", by Gayle Bittinger.  Warren Publishing House, In., 1994.

www.childrensrecipes.com
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/kids/
http://www.amazingmoms.com/
www.kids-cooking-activities.com/index.htmlwww.nncc.org/Curriculum/fc46_cook.kids.html
www.cookingwithkids.com