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Let’s do everything necessary to have time and organization and that the children accompany us in the kitchen as part of a safe and enriching experience. Let us know its valuable benefits.
Getting kids involved in the kitchen can be easy if the foray promises the things they love – fun and tasty flavors. Arming yourself with easy and tasty recipes will allow us to have very collaborative and talented helpers.
Cooking is quite an experience. It deserves dedication and patience. There are many skills that our children learn while spending a fundamental time at home.
Here are benefits and tips to keep you safe. Do not miss them!
Benefits of having children in the kitchen
There are skills that children, once they learn them, never forget. These help them in their growth and autonomy.
Although we have the idea of cooking with the children for a special moment, it would be interesting the other way around: make cooking a special moment. Well, cooking not only cheers up the palate on certain dates, but good flavors are always pleasant.
On the other hand, that children participate in the kitchen implies organization, production of the moment and subsequent cleaning. To begin, everything must be at hand. After cooking, everything must be clean and in its place.
1. Cooking is fun
If what is required for a tasty day is planned and anticipated, having the children participate with caution and prevention in the kitchen will be relaxing. As it is an integral action, composed of sections, successive and chained processes, It will assume that children take on roles and that the roles rotate.
With the respective supervision and follow-up of the instructions, they will carry out in a festive atmosphere the execution of dishes or desserts that will surprise everyone.
2. Bring the family together
Without a doubt, cook with the family and with the kids it will be a moment of family union. Organizing on a Sunday around the common search for a flavor will imbue the family with an aura of harmony.
And if the recipe is developed to remember or recognize the culinary work of a family member, then the positive result will be both sentimental and explicit.
3. Teaches literacy, science, and math
Reading the recipe by children is an exercise in interpretation and comprehension, appropriate to a reality in process. Cooking displays a series of mathematical operations that involve conversions, handling of fractions and quantities with relative accuracy.
Achieving the snow point or syrup, thickening a sauce or cream, knowing the boiling point or how steam cooks vegetables, is part of the chemistry that accompanies a recipe.
The Mexican writer and religious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz already said it in the following way: “If Aristotle had cooked, much more would have written”, when he alluded tothe natural secrets he had discovered.
4. Prepare for life
Children will be grateful that we have them ready to face life. Learning to cook is one of those learning that liberates and gives autonomy. Adolescents or young people who cook affirm and define themselves.
In any case, they will know what to do when they are alone with a refrigerator, raw food and a stove, to avoid the junk food option.
5. Helps to consume healthy food
Cooking is an easy way to eat healthy. It assumes that we take time to process the food once we have bought it fresh from the market.
To this we add that the children accompany us in the purchase of fruits, vegetables and meats. This describes an intense and comprehensive training cycle.
6. Develop psychomotor skills
Chopping, slicing and stirring are actions that require fine motor development. As well as using fingers as tweezers or sharpening eyesight to transfer a liquid to a certain point of cubic centimeters. Precision and accuracy account for the success of a recipe.
Children have fun with the idea of breaking eggs and it is good that they do so to help them gauge strength and intensity. When they achieve the separation of the yolks and the whites, they will be giving an evident signal of control and balance.
7. Educate concentration
The kitchen is perfect for concentration exercises. Following the steps of a recipe, the use of ingredients by quantity or weight demands exclusive minutes from children.
This is perfect when it comes to complex recipes. For example, when certain mixes are reserved while one part is in the oven and another is beaten at the table. The activities arranged in time and space educate in the idea that things that are worthwhile involve effort and dedication,
How to get children involved?
The popular saying goes that love enters through the mouth. Let us invite the children to cook what they like the most. The pasta with bolognese sauce, Nuggets, hamburgers, are dishes that surely attract them and that have the particularity of being simple to prepare.
For the children to participate in the kitchen, we are going to involve them in the process of washing the vegetables, bringing the ingredients closer together and dictating the formula. They will want to weigh and beat, to dress or set the table. Let’s try to be clear about the kitchen tasks so that, depending on their age, they feel that their contribution is irreplaceable.
Recommendations to prevent risks
When we cook with children, avoiding distractions is the first safety rule. We cannot leave the work area and leave them alone.
On the other hand, apart from having gloves on hand to handle hot pots, pans or containers, we must be very alert with boiling liquids. Children do not need to handle them; there are many risks and they will have time to familiarize themselves with their wise use.
If the kitchen is gas, let’s take precautions when lighting the burners. If when a liquid boils it spills and turns off the fire, let’s not forget to close the gas outlet. In that sense, electric cookers are safer, although gas cookers allow better control of heat.
Cooking with children ensures family traditions
The kitchen is a center or reservoir of family culture. Family recipes, seasoning and secrets are part of the intimate atmosphere of a home. That children participate in the kitchen of this festival of smells and flavors excites and perpetuates customs.
The preparation of certain foods is associated with dates and events that provide identity and a sense of belonging. Children have a golden opportunity in the kitchen to get to know the region in which they live through ingredients and mixtures.
Seeing the grandmother cook one of her special dishes and help her, will make the moment unforgettable. Lovingly striving to reach that desired point of smell and palate in the future will always be an inexhaustible possibility.
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