Learning to Cook as a Family
- Further Education Society of Alberta
- Sep 19, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 27
Cooking as a family is a great way to learn and connect over something we do every day: eating. Involving kids in the kitchen can help nurture healthy eating habits, build confidence, and create space to share culture and family traditions. It can even encourage picky eaters to try foods they helped prepare. Along the way, children build early math, science, and reading skills through everyday life skills like measuring ingredients, following instructions, learning about temperature and time, and practising new vocabulary.
It does not have to feel daunting. At first, cooking together can seem stressful or messy, and kitchen safety is always important, especially around sharp knives and hot surfaces. The good news is that there are plenty of simple, age-appropriate ways for children to help, making it a positive experience for everyone.
Below are some tips and resources to help you get started. You do not need to try everything at once. Choose what works for your family and start small. You might plan a meal around a favourite food or begin with a relaxed weekend lunch instead of dinner on a busy school night.
Planning meals
Invite your kids to help plan meals and grocery shopping. They can choose a recipe or a favourite food to build a meal around, help check the fridge and cupboards for what you already have, look through flyers to see what foods are on sale, or write a grocery list together.
Some extra inspiration:
Choose a favourite colour and plan a meal using foods in that colour
Pick a favourite movie and plan a themed meal to match
Choose a country and explore new foods or dishes from that culture
Grocery shopping
Grocery shopping can be a great chance to learn. On a trip to the store, invite your kids to choose something new, like a fruit or vegetable, to use in a recipe. They can help find ingredients, count items as they go into the cart, or check items off the shopping list.
Encourage children to notice environmental print along the way, such as signs, labels, and logos on food packages. Older kids can practise reading food labels and help choose healthier options, while younger children can search for a specific brand or type of cereal among all the boxes.
Preparing and cooking food
If you are using a recipe, read it together before you begin. Cooking introduces so many interesting new words. Talk about what you will need and name the kitchen tools and ingredients as you go. Will you use a whisk or a measuring cup? Cinnamon or basil? Seeing and hearing words in a real-life setting helps children better understand and remember their meanings.
Invite kids to taste along the way. Tasting is a great opportunity to encourage children to try new foods and talk about flavours like sweet, spicy, sour, or salty, as well as textures such as smooth or crunchy. This helps build a strong connection between descriptive words and physical experiences.
Age-appropriate tasks
There are kitchen jobs for almost every age. Younger children can wash produce, count ingredients, measure, and mix by hand. Older children can stir, grate, and, with supervision and proper safety tools, practise chopping.
Canada’s Food Guide offers a helpful list of age-appropriate kitchen tasks:https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating-recommendations/cook-more-often/involve-others-in-planning-and-preparing-meals/involving-kids-in-planning-and-preparing-meals/
Some extra inspiration:
Make homemade beverages like smoothies
Let kids get creative with presentation by arranging food into a face or simple artwork
Food related activities
If you are looking for something a little different, there are many food-related activities you can enjoy as a family.
You could try:
Growing herbs or vegetables together
Watching a cooking show and talking about what you see
Visiting a local farmer’s market
Picking berries or visiting an orchard
Reading books about food and cooking, including stories as well as recipe books
If you are looking for more ideas, there are many great resources that support cooking and eating together as a family. We have gathered a few below to help you get started.
Most of all, remember to have fun. When you cook with kids, you are not just making a meal. You are building skills, confidence, and healthy habits that can last a lifetime. And who knows, one day they might even cook a delicious meal for you.
A few resources
Canada’s food guide:
There are lots of great food blogs and websites with family-friendly recipes. These are just two Canadian ones:
Two fun children’s books that talk about food:
I will never not ever eat a tomato
By Lauren Child
Lola is a fussy eater. A very fussy eater. She won't eat her carrots (until her brother Charlie reveals that they're orange twiglets from Jupiter). She won't eat her mashed potatoes (until Charlie explains that they're cloud fluff from the pointiest peak of Mount Fuji). There are many things Lola won't eat, including - and especially - tomatoes. Or will she? Two endearing siblings star in a witty story about the triumph of imagination over proclivity. – Goodreads
Dragons love tacos
Written by Adam Rubin and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri
This scrumptious New York Times bestseller has a lot of kick! Dragons love tacos. They love chicken tacos, beef tacos, great big tacos, and teeny tiny tacos. So if you want to lure a bunch of dragons to your party, you should definitely serve tacos. Buckets and buckets of tacos. Unfortunately, where there are tacos, there is also salsa. And if a dragon accidentally eats spicy salsa ... oh, boy. You're in red-hot trouble. The award-winning team behind Those Darn Squirrels! has created an unforgettable, laugh-until-salsa-comes-out-of-your-nose tale of new friends and the perfect snack.
Our Literacy and Parenting Skills workshops are a great way to connect with other parents and learn techniques to strengthen your children’s learning and literacy skills. They cover all kinds of parenting topics, including food!
You can email programs@furthered.ca if you’re interested in attending a workshop in Calgary.
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