If you're schooling your children at home, chances are you're very time-poor. By teaching your children to cook, you could bundle up some learning while also getting dinner or lunch prepared.
Teaching children to cook healthy food helps them across a range of subjects simultaneously. The bonus is, you could get a healthy meal prepared as well.
By focusing on nutritious recipes you'll also address topics.
SIMULTANEOUSLY HEALTHY AND FUN
Get your kids in the kitchen with these 11 recipes
Why cooking?
Being able to in daily activities.
Learning to follow a recipe and prepare food spans several core subjects such as English, through reading and comprehension. Being able to weigh and measure out ingredients draws on maths concepts of volume and measurement, and the skills of inquiry and problem-solving are central to science.
Teaching children to cook, and focusing on preparing healthy foods, integrates knowledge from all these subjects and by helping your children develop motivation and communication skills.
A study in 18 year four classes , using hands-on food-based nutrition activities. The children in these classes improved their significantly, compared to children in the 16 control classes who didn't receive the integrated lessons.
A found active learning activities such as cooking, food preparation and school gardening had the biggest impact on improving nutrition knowledge and dietary patterns.
This was especially the case when it came to getting children to eat more fruit and vegetables and reducing their intake of sugar and total daily kilojoules.
In Australia, neither children nor their parents eat enough vegetables. Energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods (junk) account for one-third, and .
Lots of resources are available to help make healthy cooking fun, fast and inexpensive. Source: Getty Images
recommends we keep junk food intakes low while aiming for five serves of vegetables and two serves of fruit daily to stay healthy and prevent chronic diseases like type two diabetes and heart disease.
Only one in 20 adults and one in 17 children under 18 years of age .
You can make cooking more challenging
It is common for children to think they don't like maths and metrics, with globally. So it is important to find in these areas.
Cooking is a real-life way to to your child. Show them how to such as mass (weight), length, area and volume.
Basic maths skills are essential to .
This clear link between cooking, nutrition and maths highlights the potential to enhance .
WHAT YOU CAN LEARN IN THE KITCHEN
Bakeproof: Kids in the kitchen
To challenge your children's maths ability even further, try limiting the cooking utensils used so more calculation is needed. For example, when a recipe calls for one cup (250mL) of rice, use the ¼ cup (62.5mL) measure and ask your children to work out how many of these they need to add.
Or use different types of kitchen utensils such as a measuring jug rather than a measuring cup to work out the gradations and pour the content of the cup into the jug and vice versa.
Cooking also provides the opportunity to discuss important nutrition topics with your child. Children find it easier to work out which foods are healthy and and why.
Try sorting a recipe's ingredients before you start cooking. Or try to estimate the you have added when following a recipe.
Food art – if it looks good it tastes good
Arranging healthy foods in fun and creative ways helps kids like these foods more. An showed beautiful food designs created using spinach and fruit increased children's desire to eat these foods.
Using food art to improve the enjoyment of healthy eating is a promising way to help eat healthy foods.
Our is a collection of videos that show how well-liked classics such as burgers and pizza can be prepared in healthy ways, just as fast and at a lower cost.
For some extra activities on food and measurement for primary school children, and a chance to explore , explore the .
is a Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, is a PhD candidate, nutrition and mathematics education and is a Senior Researcher at the University of Newcastle.
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .
