Cooking

Young children are able to learn and develop important skills in fun ways with simple, child-safe, supervised cooking activities that suit their age group and abilities. While our preschool students develop physical capabilities such as strong hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills through new and challenging movements like mixing, squeezing and mashing, they also gain a sense of confidence and fulfillment in following directions and helping to create an edible meal. Children strengthen their cognitive skills through listening to and following instructions, using learned math skills to understand concepts such as counting and measuring and employing higher level thinking and problem solving.

By helping to plan, carry out and successfully complete a set task, they learn habits that can help them to succeed academically including organization, using time properly and finishing projects. Before,during and after cooking activities, children engage in discussions, express their opinions and preferences and are encouraged to ask and answer questions, providing them with an excellent opportunity to expand and enrich their vocabularies by using new words and phrases.

Cooking activities are also used to incorporate and reinforce learning about colors, shapes, sizes and science concepts. As children work with one another and with their teacher, they practice and enhance their social skills and sense of belonging to a classroom community. Through cleaning up and putting away objects used in the cooking process, preschoolers also learn responsible behavior.