Simple Ideas for Cooking with Your PreSchooler

January 24, 2008 12:05 pm PreSchool Mama Learning Fun

Few activities have the kind of multiple benefits cooking does. It’s part science, part math and part creativity. A preschooler who’s learning to potter around in the kitchen with his mother gets a rare chance to create something that can compare equally with something created by his parents, giving him the immense sense of accomplishment so vital at this stage. Plus, it’s the most useful domestic skill there is – the earlier they begin getting involved in preparing food, the more likely they are to continue this hobby right through adolescence and youth.

Obviously, there’s a limit to how much you can get your kids to do when they are in the kitchen. The kitchen is full of objects that could injure a young child – knives, hot dishes. Always make sure you are with your child at every moment, as you prepare the dish.

Even a 2 or 3 year old child can begin helping Mommy in the kitchen. Blunt knives like a cheese knife with a rounded point (never use knives with a sharp point to help your budding Nigella Lawson) can be used to spread cheese on crackers or bread. It helps eye hand co ordination and she gets the satisfaction of preparing a snack for her self from scratch! Show her how to hold the handle of the knife deftly to spread cheese on the cracker. She can also use the knife to slice up bananas, and other ripe and soft fruit.

When they’re a little older and more careful, you can progress to other harder vegetables using a serrated knife – these are safer than regular knives, but you’ll still have to be watchful when she handles it.

There are plenty of other chores she can help with in the kitchen.

  • Greasing pans
  • Washing vegetables
  • Handing you ingredients
  • Ripping up leaves for a salad
  • Measuring flour and sugar for baking a cake


Get her introduced to smaller easy to use kitchen gadgets. Teach her to use a hand mixer (always under constant supervision) to beat the eggs for a cake. Kids this age find beating with a spoon really hard to do.


Get her to weigh out the ingredients for bread before she goes to bed and have her wake up to warm oven fresh bread that she helped bake.


Don’t forget to kit her out for the job – a child sized apron is a must. Get her small sized wooden spoons, blunt knives with smaller handles and a chopping board that she finds easier to handle. It makes her feel she’s contributing as much as you do to the family’s meal preparation.


This is one of the best parts about what cooking teaches your child – the concept that cooking for the family and others is not a dull, chore but a fun hobby that yields terrific results!

Encourage your child to have her own tea party. Invite your parents or siblings over. She can make cheese and cracker snacks, slice some fruit. Help her make some fruit juice or drink to go with the snacks. Help her add finishing touches to the presentation – add toothpicks to pick the fruit, and a few mint leaves decorating the sides of the plate.

Here’s a great video about cooking with kids, and a mini pizza recipe that any child can make.

Bon Appetit!

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15 Responses

  1. Gayla McCord :

    Date: January 26, 2008 @ 7:03 am

    Hey, thanks for stopping by 7 Babes a Blogging. I wish I’d known about the mother rules too! This man flu is kickin my behind!

    Love the blog design! Cute crayon buttons. Just adorable!

  2. PreSchool Mama :

    Date: January 26, 2008 @ 12:33 pm

    Thanks for stopping by, Gayla, and glad you love the design!

    They really should hand out a pamphlet with the instructions before the nesting urge kicks in.

  3. chinnee :

    Date: January 26, 2008 @ 7:14 pm

    Hi Preschool Mama,
    thanks for dropping by my site. Haha…if i let my gal handles them in the kitchen, my job will not get time and i’ll stress even worse :)

    Anyway, nice knowing you and glad to read your sharing on parenting :p

  4. PreSchool Mama :

    Date: January 26, 2008 @ 7:57 pm

    Hi Chinnee,

    The trick is to give them little things to do, and gradually move on to bigger tasks when they are older.

    Try it. You’ll both love it!

  5. Blaine Moore :

    Date: January 29, 2008 @ 7:28 pm

    Great article, and I liked the video. That was a nice addition.

    My nieces like to cook with my mother whenever they visit. Its very cute watching the 2 year old try to “tap” the eggs to break them when they are baking.

  6. Sherri :

    Date: January 29, 2008 @ 9:14 pm

    Wonderful article!

    I’ve been cooking and baking with my son since he was 2. I have pictures of him standing on a stool in his Buzz Lightyear underwear and baseball shirt kneading biscuit dough and grinning from ear to ear.

    He’s nearly 13 now and can prepare entire meals on his own. I tutor part-time at the local library and sometimes when I get home tired and hungry, dinner is waiting!

    I homeschool him, so cooking and baking are part of his curriculum, and he absolutely enjoys it. We’ve saved for college, but he’s leaning toward culinary school instead. I told him whatever he loves to do should be what he chooses. Work take too much of your life to not love it.

  7. Karen (Karooch from Scraps of Mind) :

    Date: January 30, 2008 @ 4:56 pm

    Maybe that’s why i dislike cooking so much as an adult. I didn’t get to do enough of it when i was a littlie.

  8. PreSchool Mama :

    Date: January 30, 2008 @ 5:35 pm

    @ Blaine, I know! It’s one of the cutest roles they can play, that of a chef!

    @Sherri, it does carry over into adulthood! It’s so cool he loves it so much he wants to do it for a living.

    @Karooch, I hear you. I didn’t get to cook as a child either, but slowly got sucked into it after I got married. I still can’t say I love it, but I totally get how useful a skill it is now, which is why this post!

  9. JoLynn Braley :

    Date: February 2, 2008 @ 12:57 am

    What great ideas, I wish my nephews lived closer because I’d try these out on them!

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