22 Feb 2007 |
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On February 26 at 1 pm EST, ChefsLine members and guests will talk live with Barbara Beery of BatterUp Kids. You don’t need to be a chef or a cooking teacher to start cooking with your kids at home! Whatever your child’s age and no matter your own cooking skills, cooking together is a creative experience that makes important family memories. To learn how and get started, join us and learn from the nation’s leader in Kids Cooking.
To register online, please visit our Events page.
Chef Barbara Beery has shared her top reasons why cooking with your kids is such an important family affair. What follows are her lessons learned from her 15 years of experiences teaching children and their families to cook.
Tips from the Kitchen of Barbara Beery and Batter Up Kids Culinary Center
by Barbara Beery
The benefits of teaching children to cook are numerous, but the most important one is spending quality time at home with your children. Cooking is highly creative, non-competitive and gives children a big helping of self-esteem. Some other good reasons for cooking with your children include:
It’s an important part of a healthy lifestyle:
Children who are encouraged to be a part of meal planning and preparation will take a personal interest and ownership in whatever they help make.
They will be more receptive to sampling new and different foods if they’ve had a hand in the preparation.
Motivating children to cook gives them the nutritional knowledge which enables them to develop lifelong good eating habits.
Teaching children to cook is about creating memories and that is the most precious ingredient of all.
It’s a life skill:
We all need to eat…it’s a great experience to learn to cook for yourself and others.
It equips a child with skills and knowledge that they will use and benefit from for the rest of their lives.
Enhances academics - Reading, math, science, history and geography:
Children learn to increase their vocabulary by reading recipes thus increasing their reading skills.
They learn different math concepts from measuring to learning about fractions and conversions.
Cooking is all about science. Hypothesis, prediction and outcome skills are honed in every recipe made.
Every food has a history, where did it begin, how did it get started, where did the name originate? This also brings in geography. What part of the world did the recipe originate, what produce grew well in that particular region, do the recipes of that area reflect the produce which was plentiful?
Great for self-esteem:
In how many extra-curricular activities may a child participate and become an instant success? Just one…Cooking!
It takes many piano lessons to play a beautiful piece on the piano, lots of ballet lesson to understand all the positions and work them correctly, and many after school soccer practices until you understand how the game is played. But all it takes is one cooking lesson to be accomplished and to complete the recipe with success.
Follow a recipe from start to finish, have a delicious treat to eat as your reward, and you have become an expert on that recipe. Cooking is self-gratifying, extremely creative, and an ideal activity for all children.
