Cooking with Kids
Cooking with Kids
Cooking with kids empowers children to prepare their own healthy snacks and make their own nutritional choices. It gives them a chance to see others enjoying healthy food, and provides time to discuss nutrition concepts and what makes some food or food prep techniques healthier than others. Furthermore, cooking and eating is a wonderful way to explore different cultures and their flavorful cuisines and customs.
Cooking with Kids
Tips for Cooking with Kids from Life Lab’s Growing Classroom Activity Guide
Supplies, strategy, safety, and age appropriate tips
Tools and Equipment
Curious Chef Cooking Tools sell nylon knives that are often used in cooking classes
Round tipped steak knives are an affordable option for students prepping food in the garden or classroom
Montessori Services Food Preparation Catalog has a great collection of kid friendly cooking tools
Classroom Cooking Box Supply List from Gault School, Santa Cruz, CA
Solar Cooking: Cook in the garden using the sun by learning to make an oven or buying a cooker.
Crockpot Cooking Tips ideas for cooking in your classroom with a crockpot
Recipe Resources and Classroom Tested Cook Books
Recipes shared on our School Garden Resource Blog
Life Lab’s YouTube Playlist on Garden-Enhanced Nutrition Education
Life Lab’s Garden Sprouts Day Camp - Recipes for Families
Food Literacy Center has a vast collection of recipe related resources for kids, including videos and spanish language recipes.
Kids Cook Farm Fresh Foods: Download the complete cookbook including seasonal recipes, activities, and farm profiles that connect food, nutrition and sustainable agriculture
Food For Thought Nutrition Across the Curriculum Created by North Coast Opportunities Head Start in Mendocino County, CA. This classroom cooking guidebook focused on cooking meals with children.
Cooking with California Foods in K-12 Schools cookbook and professional development guide, with a focus on school meal production.
The Edible Schoolyard Project Kitchen Classroom Recipes
WholeKids Foundation’s Better Bites nutrition education handouts and recipes and recipe database
Food Safety Resources and Lessons
Policy, protocol, and extensive resources for harvesting from the garden at Life Lab's Garden to Cafeteria Page.
Glo Germ: provides lesson plans on handwashing using Glo Germ
Printable Dishwashing Station Bin Cards
Family Friendly Cookbooks for the Young Chef
Kids’ Kitchen 40 Fun and Healthy Recipes to Make and Share Unique recipes are divided into five colour-coded categories to reflect the major food groups. Simple step-by-step instructions put kids in control as they learn that cooking is more than an art — it's a science!
Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes by Mollie Katzen. Pretend Soup is the classic cookbook for kids, written by Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook, and educator Ann Henderson. "The child is the focus here: attention is paid to physical ability, comfortable work levels, and variety of tactile experience. A long list of skills and attitudes children can gain from cooking supports the idea that the process is more important than the product." - School Library Journal. Recommended for ages 5 to 8. Also check out Katzen's Honest Pretzels and Other Amazing Recipes for older kids.
Cooking with Children: 15 Lessons for Children, Age 7 and Up, Who Really Want to Learn to Cook by Marion Cunningham Although not as colorful and hip as some of the other cookbooks on this list, Marion Cunningham (Fannie Farmer Cookbooks) has created a book for adults and children that teaches very useful culinary skills as well as the importance of quality family time preparing meals. For example, in chapter one readers will make Vegetable Soup while learning how to chop vegetables, saut, tell the difference between boil and simmer, and how to be organized. Recommended for ages 7 and up.
Fanny At Chez Panisse by Alice Waters Opening up the magic world of cooking to children, Alice Waters describes, in the words of seven-year-old Fanny, the path food travels from the garden to the kitchen to the table. Teaching kids where food really comes from not just from the market but also from farms and people who care about the earth, Fanny at Chez Panisse has lessons on the importance of eating with your hands, of garlic and of composting and recycling. With 46 recipes.... - from the publisher. Recommended for ages 9 to 12.