The kitchen is often considered the heart of the home, and for good reason. Lasting memories are made when families cook together, and for children especially, the kitchen is also an excellent place to learn! Preparing and cooking food involves loads of math and science, but did you know it's also a powerful opportunity to build literacy skills? Here are just a few essential skills that cooking can help support:
- Expanding Vocabulary: Cooking introduces children to new words related to techniques, tools, and ingredients. Incorporate interesting-sounding words like sizzle, whisk, and chop!
- Print Awareness: Reading step-by-step recipe instructions and ingredient lists engages children with different types of texts and helps them understand how written English is read (left to right, top to bottom). Read recipes aloud slowly, pointing to each word as you go.
- Following Directions: The structured format of a recipe helps children learn to follow sequential directions.
- Storytelling and Sequencing: Discussing the steps involved in a recipe helps children develop their speaking and listening skills. Enhance the experience by sharing stories about a recipe’s history or your own childhood cooking memories.
Now that we know which literacy skills can be sharpened in the kitchen, let’s get creative! Here are some fun ways incorporate literacy into your family cooking traditions at home:
- Alphabet Soup: Add alphabet pasta to your favorite soup and have your child spell out words or identify letters. This activity supports letter recognition and vocabulary building.
- Mini Pizza Characters: Use English muffins or pita bread to make mini pizzas. Encourage your child to create silly faces using various toppings, then have them tell a story about the pizza character they created after you pop it in the oven!
- Pancake Letters: Create different letters and shapes on a griddle using pancake batter. Kids can practice forming letters and identifying shapes while enjoying a tasty breakfast.
- Homemade Pretzel Letters: Have your child form a pretzel in the shape of the first letter of their name!
Boosting a child’s literacy skills through cooking and food is a piece of cake! And don’t forget: Your Chattahoochee Valley Libraries has oodles of kids’ cookbooks with plenty of fun and tasty recipes for the whole family to cook up:
- Kids' Fun & Healthy Cookbook by Graimes, Nicola
- The Disney Villains Cookbook by Joy Howard
- Cook it! : the Dr. Seuss Cookbook by Daniel Gerke
- A Juneteenth Celebration Cookbook by Alliah L. Agostini
- Minecraft : the Crafter's Kitchen by Emma Carlson Berne
So, tie on those aprons, preheat the oven, and get ready to transform your kitchen into a place where remarkable learning experiences happen!