Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school No Heat/No Raw Cooking Projects

DS (16mon) has been trying REALLY hard to help me in the kitchen lately bringing me tools & trying to put them on the hot pots on the stove :S.

I'd really like a no heat/no raw (because he'll eat as we go!) project to try with him so he can learn more about cooking .

I was thinking we'll make play-dough, I feel better about him eating the stuff we make then store-bought.

Any suggestions?

There is so much you can do. Let him use a plastic knife and cut up some fruit for smoothies or fruit salad. My kids 6&9 still enjoy spreading shredded cheese on a torillas. Then pop it under the broiler and they get to see the change. Cucumbers are easy to chop/cut with a plastic knife. Stirring anything is good. Practicing Measuring water at the sink and pour it into a pot to use for pasta. Look for things he can do even if it's not a whole job or even needed. Praise the help even if it's not perfect or messy. This is a wonderful time. Enjoy it it goes by fast. The could be the start of a wonderful thing - cooking together.

You can get a lot of ideas from this catalog too: For Small Hands

DD loves to make pizza, it has lot of steps and she can taste everything. At the end I lace it in owen and we go somewhere else to play for a while.

That catalogue of little cooking tool is SO cute; and as I'm quite short I should actually probably look into them...

I really like the idea of letting him play with the measuring cups in the sink, I'm SURE he'll think that's lots of fun .

The fruit salad reminded me how much he likes frozen bananas, I think we'll try that. I'm not sure he'd cut the fruit, probably just eat it but that's ok too!

We do pizza all the time, I sort of have a vision of him spread eagle in the middle of the pizza dough swimming through the sauce and cheese .

I'm not surprised he's trying to help me in the kitchen already, he's always been interested in what I'm doing. I love to cook & he LOVES to eat, we're a good team!

DD has this cheap table from Ikea which I set on kitchen floor when ever I cook with her. Our biggest problems with pizza is that she eats the fillings while we are making it, leaving a very empty pizza in owen

DS loved to help make cookies when he was younger. He helped mix and roll out the dough and cut the cookies.

We do pizza here a lot too and he helps me put the ingredients into my bread machine. Since he's a bit older he helps me measure and it's a good time to teach him about measurement and fractions

Wolf and Bear both want to help... with the same thing at the same time. Did you know you can have three people pour one cup of flour into a bowl?

There are a bunch of fun kids snacks in FamilyFun magazine. You might be able to access them online. They are all geared with help from little hands in mind.

http://www.dole.com/SuperKids/Recipe/tabid/715/Default.aspx

We have a small cook book by dole with some very simple recipes. We made frozen yogurt covered bananas with sprinkle tonight. It was very fun and easy.

Thanks guys! These are all great ideas, keep them coming!

I let him use the measuring cups, a bowl and some kidney beans in the living room the other day. Apparently I forgot who's child is mine!! The ended up EVERYWHERE :D, but he had ALLOT of fun measuring them for the first 10 minutes (before throwing became a better game).

I've been letting him stir things for mommy & he thinks it's GREAT. Of course now he's under-foot in the kitchen even worse then before :D, still always trying to reach up & stir the hot pans on the stove. Maybe he'll be a chef!