Favorite Recipes for Preschoolers Are Often the Easiest

Cookin' Cards: Individualized Cooking Recipes. (Photo from Montessori Services)

As preschoolers, my children loved to help me cook and bake. Some of their favorite recipes, though, were the easiest, allowing them to demonstrate independence and self-discipline.

I made the following items available at home:

• A few low shelves in the kitchen with my children’s food-preparation supplies
• Real vegetable peelers and other child-sized kitchen utensils
• Picture-based recipe cards when possible
• A kitchen step stool so my children could easily reach the counter when helping me
• A child-sized table for food preparation when working independently
• A child-sized apron to give importance to the food-preparation activity and provide a beginning and ending to the task

Ants on a Log

A favorite recipe was Ants on a Log. I liked to use recipe cards similar to those in the photo. Here’s a review of the recipe cards available through Montessori Services.

For Ants on a Log, I had the celery, scrub brush, safe knife, cutting board, peanut butter, and raisins set out in an orderly fashion when I first introduced the recipe. As my children became comfortable with food preparation, they were able to prepare recipes with little or no help from me.

Here is another great food-preparation resource: a list of cooking activities from Montessori Mom. The article is called “Cooking with Kids and Learning the Alphabet too!”

No related posts.