Practice your math skills while cooking

Whether you hope to bring out your childrens’ inner Picasso or deepest Einstein, the way to help them along is to cook with them. The multiple skills acquired while just having fun go well beyond making cookies. The pleasure of measuring, mixing, squishing and fixing do come with buckets of learning. Children are tactile learners, they want to feel, do, taste and experience the things that are going on around them. While it may slow parents down to include kids daily, it is an investment worth making as often as possible. The bonus is that reducing the fear of cooking helps young children become young adults equipped to take their health into their hands. The cooking kid will be ready to take up the spatula at university to save money and calories that their counterparts can’t. Being the one who can whip up a meal makes sure that there will be plenty of friends around to do the dishes. Measuring is Math Learning to cook means learning to measure and that makes a delicious connection of numbers to outcome. A simple cookie recipe like the one below is a great place to start. Knowing that a specific amount of an ingredient or two turns into a delicious treat is only the end result. Being able to carefully measure flour, sugar and butter lays down the pathways to math, learning that a certain size cup holds more or less and is different than another is knowledge they will need for kindergarten. The technique of levelling off the flour isn’t just fun, it also shows that being precise is important in math. Mixing is Science Watching 2 ingredients blend together to form a dough and then change texture when baked is not magic, its chemistry. Knowing that oil and water repel each other and that baking soda mixed with vinegar will cause an explosion sets up a fascination for what other chemicals can do. The explanation of why baking powder makes things rise should be simple for a 3 year old: “it reacts with water and heat”. But when they get to grade 5 sciences and find out that it is really carbon dioxide that is released as it pushes oxygen out of the way is the kind of head start they need. They are already fascinated with the outcome and have tangible proof that it works. Plating is Art Plunking a bunch of too hot cookies in a pile will ruin them but having patience can create beauty. Allowing cookies to cool and then arranging them on a plate with a sprinkle of sugar and some berries is a creative endeavour. Show your child how to stack in a checker board pattern and take a picture. Then make a starburst and take another photo, how do they compare? Which one looks better? Why? What if you add some colour? One large strawberry on a few mint leaves looks better than a bunch all scattered because it creates a focal point. And every piece of art, moment of the day, activity of childhood needs a focal point. What every parent needs is a few teaching tools that kids have no idea are anything but play time. If mom gets a cup of tea and a cookie in the deal then so be it! Simple Nut Butter Cookies This recipe is completely kid proof, any which way that it comes together will net something edible. Preparation time:10 minutes Servings: 36 cookies (2 cookies per serving) 2 cups any combo of all-natural nut butters (try almond, peanut, sunflower seed…) ¼ cup molasses ¼ cup honey 1 egg 3-6 tbsp whole-wheat flour, divided Combine all ingredients except flour in a bowl and mix with a spatula. Sprinkle in 1 tbsp of flour at a time until dough comes together and is quite thick and less sticky. Use your hands to roll into 36 small balls and place onto a baking sheet. Press with a fork. Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should be a little soft in the middle; they will harden as they cool. *reprinted by permission of www.myfriendinfood.com Theresa Albert, DHN, RNCP is a nutritionist and parent who knows how hard it is to raise kids with good eating habits. She is a mulit-media personality with her fingers in every pie that encourages healthy attitudes toward food and health. Sign up for her free newsletter to receive news, tips and recipes to feed any fast family!