The secret of success is to keep everything simple and straightforward.
All children love to help and feel important in the kitchen, so try to make your activity something special as well as practical. That way the children can work and practise the skill over and over again. Whatever you do, make it fun and stress-free for everyone.
Safe and simple
* Don't use sharp knives, use round-ended knives.
* Use simple equipment which is easy to use and not too fiddly.
* Keep away from ovens and hobs; for the first few times, make something that you do not have to cook, until you get to know the child and feel happy and safe with their abilities.
* Use recipes that involve lots of mixing, stirring and whisking and so on.
* Don't use raw meat - children might put it into their mouths, and they may well be unaware of the potential dangers.
* Allow children to make a mess - this is fun and it breaks down so many barriers.
* Don't dictate how the finished product should look. Let children use their imaginative, creative side - after all, it is their food and their masterpiece.
Learning opportunities
* Practise fine motor skills with some fresh herbs, allowing children to tear the herbs into small pieces with their fingers, while they smell and taste them. Hard-boil some eggs for peeling with the fingers and mash the egg for sandwiches (egg and cress.)
* Make sandwiches that involve spreading and cutting. To make a change, you could use some shaped biscuit cutters to cut out pieces of bread.
* Show children the difference between raw, soft and cooked eggs, and observe the process of change. Show them raw and cooked pasta, and the different shapes and sizes of pasta available.
* Make a quiz about different fruit and vegetables and find out where they grow -below, on top or above the ground?
Once you are really confident with your cookery pupils you can start to introduce some of the standard skills:
* Making bread and pizzas from scratch including making your own dough.
* Pastry making, use cutters, shapes, biscuits and so on.
* Pasta and rice salads.
