Cooking With Your Toddler: How it helps Their Development
Your toddler can take control of their learning through hands-on experiences. Learn how cooking can stimulate your child’s social, physical, and cognitive development!
Social/Emotional Development:
Toddlers may practice skills including problem-solving, sharing, and teamwork. Children learn the value of following instructions and being mindful of those around them by developing and following recipes as a team. A child will experience feelings of pride, confidence, and a boost to their self-esteem when they successfully complete a recipe.
Physical Development:
Children constantly use their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills when cooking. The activities that kids can practice include blending, pressing, spreading, kneading, shaking, mashing, tearing, and more! For example, this might resemble squeezing a lemon, or spreading jelly on a piece of bread. Turn on some music and dance to add more movement!
Cognitive Development:
Children learn about measuring, sequencing, and cause and effect through the processes of cooking. Children will learn, for instance, that making mistakes is a normal aspect of cooking! Cooking will encourage children to be creative.
The most important thing to remember is to have fun during these learning experiences with your toddler. Check out the link below for toddler friendly recipes!