The kitchen is a very fun place for children. Why does a liquid change color? What makes flavors sweet or savory? How much can you stretch a flour dough with your hands? In addition, the kitchen develops their imagination and makes them acquire useful knowledge that will serve them for the rest of their life. From 3 years old, and always accompanied by their parents, children can become magnificent kitchens. We give you ideas for cook playing with them.
What can a little one do in the kitchen
From the age of 3, children already have fine motor skills developed enough to handle small pieces of food and help in the preparation of the dishes. The kids love to get stained and play with water. Therefore, we can assign simple tasks such as wash fruit or vegetables Then we will cut. They can also batter, flour, chop the lettuce with their hands, mix food in a bowl, crush cooked vegetables, mix ingredients, prepare salads or add cold sauces to dishes.
They also love hiking. We can take advantage of this to Take them with us to the market. A large market with varied food stalls is a most stimulating place for your senses. And also, it is a most educational visit because they will learn the names of many foods and also where everything they eat comes from. They will associate the raw materials with the dishes they prepare and eat every day and then they will realize that a thigh comes from a whole chicken and that the tomato sauce from the macaroni does not grow in the boats. We can take advantage of the visit to the market to explain, for example, how to choose fresh foods or that you have to look carefully at the expiration date of packaged products.
Already at home, we can ask you to help us Place everything we bought. Children love to organize by colors and sizes. They can store the pasta, legumes and cereals in their respective boats. Meanwhile, we can organize the food that needs to be well refrigerated.
AdvertisingFour simple ideas to play with children in the kitchen
Children learn by touching, tasting, feeling, smelling and listening. Preparing simple recipes that stimulate your senses will then make you more eager to try the foods they have prepared themselves. These 3 ideas are fantastic to start cooking prepare simple things with children in the kitchen:
- Funny sandwiches, toasts and sandwiches with smilies. If the kids have fun with the fruits and vegetables, they will establish a positive connection with the healthy foods that form the basis of their good nutrition. We can use natural ingredients such as pieces of fruit, vegetables and cooked vegetables, to form cheerful and appetizing faces.
- Shape cookies. One of the activities they enjoy most in the kitchen is kneading and cutting the cookies that Mommy will bake with the molds so that the whole family can eat them.
- Chocolate cake. A simple cake made from successive layers of cookies with chocolate cream will keep you entertained for a while while learning to cook simple recipes.
- Cupcakes. In pastry, cupcakes are ideal to let the imagination of children fly. There are endless possibilities for toppings, where you can use ingredients such as fruits to color the finish, chocolate, cream, brown sugar ... or imitate shapes and faces of your favorite characters.
The kitchen, a safe and hygienic place for them
LCooking is a game and a learning Great for them, but we must turn our kitchen into a safe place for them. Everything that is dangerous or complicated is reserved for dad or mom. Knives, oven, pan, iron and pots are for adults only. Do not let them play with boiling liquids or with pans that are set on fire.
There are simple electrical appliances that kids can use supervised and helped by you, but be careful when handling blades and forks, as well as hot plates and trays. Ideally, children have a work surface away from frying pans and fire.
Hygiene is also essential. to ensure the safety and health of our kids in the kitchen. We must first make sure that they have washed their hands, and then clean and disinfect properly the surfaces on which we are going to handle food with the kids, as well as the kitchen utensils. For this, it is not enough to pass a damp cloth through the kitchen countertop, but we must use a product such as Estrella 2in1 with detergent and bleach. You can ask the little one to help you with the most basic cleaning tasks, such as using the scourer to scrub the soup spoons or the wooden ladles.
Follow an appropriate protocol In the preparation and handling of food in the kitchen it is also essential since this way we will avoid cross contamination. And finally, we have to pay special attention to the place where we store cleaning products. These must always be in a closed place and away from the hands of children.
Staining is a pleasure
Surely in your first sessions together in the kitchen you will end up smeared with flour, filled with tomato sauce or with churnates of sticky substances everywhere. And that is great! It's not about finishing clean, but teaching them to enjoy cooking.
The best thing to do with a little one in the kitchen, is to dress the children with an old tracksuit, a custom apron or an old and wide shirt, and allow them to explore, suck and touch the ingredients with their hands. In case of stain your clothes, difficult stains can be soaked for 20 minutes by adding Neutrex with Bleach for white items, and Neutrex Oxy 5 for colored items.
We can also purchase special kitchen items for children, such as smaller and lighter rollers, more manageable bowls, wooden or plastic utensils and mini-sized molds to facilitate tasks and encourage their participation.
Images | iStock / Romrodinka / didesign021 / nata_vkusidey / Jean-Marie Guyon / FamVeld.
