Nursery Food: Cooking - Little chefs

The smell of freshly baked bread wafts through Arbor Green Nursery in Edinburgh every morning as the children start each day by cooking. They collect fresh herbs from the garden to go into their bread and do all the preparation and measuring themselves.

'Cooking is a huge part of the nursery day,' says manager Natalie Clark. 'It's so important because it takes in every aspect of the curriculum and is also a life skill.'

As well as setting the foundations for children's future health and well-being, cooking offers many valuable learning opportunities and experiences - from observing how ingredients change under certain conditions (melting, freezing, rising, solidifying) to the mathematics of weighing, counting and measuring, developing manipulative skills (kneading, stirring, whisking, rolling) and learning about the origins of ingredients, to list just a few.

Ms Clark says, 'We've got three chickens that lay lots of eggs that the children collect and use in their cooking. Earlier this week, they made a big omelette. They cracked the eggs and did everything themselves. Even the youngest children are involved in cooking by chopping fruit and vegetables - sometimes it goes straight in their mouths but that's all part of the learning experience.'

Parents also cook with the nursery children. A mother from Spain recently brought in her big paella dish and demonstrated how to cook over a gas burner. But cooking isn't confined to the nursery. The children have a forest school where they cook food on campfires, such as stir-fries, bread and popcorn.

'My favourite is when we're at forest school on a cold day and we're cooking soup around the fire,' says Ms Clark. 'It brings us all together to sit and talk and feels so nice. I hope these are memories that the children will take into adulthood.'

She puts importance on the social element of cooking and enjoying food together, as well as learning about safety. Staff show the children how to do things safely, such as how to switch on and use the oven, light a fire with a flint and use sharp knives with care.

'We work in small groups under supervision and talk about the safety aspect,' she explains. 'If all children knew how to do these things from an early age then there would not be so many accidents. Children need to have experiences and take risks in order to learn.'

SEE AND DO

Cooking is also an integral part of the nursery experience for children attending the Arc Nursery in central London. The nursery is designed to enable children to see into the kitchen and there is often a line of engrossed children sat up against the counter watching the cook as she prepares their food.

'This is great for the children because, for many of them, being in daycare means they don't see much cooking at home,' explains manager Karen Collier. 'Cooking is such an important part of life but people are increasingly relying on pre-prepared foods. Watching the cook gives them an understanding of how their food is prepared - they ask her what she is doing and why. We see it as essential for the children to learn to cook when they are young and understand about healthy eating.'

The children also have hands-on cooking experiences at least three times a week with the nursery staff as well as preparing their own snacks, such as wraps and sandwiches, and serving meals themselves. 'They make food with an everyday purpose, not just for special occasions,' says Ms Collier.

ADDED EXTRAS

Even before any cooking has taken place, practitioners can make good use of the many learning opportunities. Childminder Juliana Lottmann, Surrey Quays, London, takes the under-twos that she cares for to the supermarket to choose their own fruit, which she finds encourages them to try new and varied ones.

She also introduces them to foods from different countries, such as cheese bread from her native Brazil and croissants from her French husband's culture - even the 18-month-old enjoys the sensory experience of mixing dough with her hands and feeling the different textures of the ingredients.

The children at Arc Nursery will often decide what ingredients need to be bought, go to the shops, buy the products and return with their shopping bags. 'This helps to build children's self-esteem and confidence,' Ms Collier says. 'It is wonderful for them to be able to see and do things for themselves.'

At Lynwood Nursery in Nelson, Lancashire, children develop their writing skills with shopping lists and are taught the importance of personal hygiene, such as hand-washing before touching food and wearing aprons. Staff note that cooking activities also greatly support children's speech and language development.

Manager Michelle Greenhalgh says, 'Our observations show that some of our more reluctant speakers communicate more freely in our small cooking sessions. Our practitioners use open-ended questions to help develop and extend thinking, ideas and learning. Encouraging the children to follow recipes or instructions encourages independence, while also teaching children to follow directions and use thinking skills to solve problems.'

END RESULT

Lack of access to suitable kitchen facilities can deter practitioners from cooking, but this can be overcome. Happitots Nursery in Sale, Greater Manchester, operates out of two huts. Preparing (non-alcoholic) sangria and using a hand blender to make gazpacho are popular activities. The children get to smell and taste the ingredients, weigh them out or count spoonfuls and learn to work together.

At Blagdon Nursery School and Children's Centre Reading, the focus is on food preparation rather than cooking - making sandwiches with cress they have grown, for example.

'It is more about preparation than the actual food: taking turns, sharing, measuring, mixing and counting,' says head Sarah Mitchell. 'The children get lots out of any cooking session, no matter what the end result might be.'

MORE INFORMATION

• Cooking with Kids, www.kidshealth.org

• Annabel Karmel, www.annabelkarmel.com

• I Can Cook, www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies

• Let's Get Cooking, www.letsgetcooking.org.uk

COOKING: TOP TIPS

• Don't limit cooking experiences to formal activities - involve children in preparing snacks or helping the nursery chef to prepare meals, such as peeling potatoes.

• Let children experience the full cooking process from choosing, smelling and tasting raw ingredients to watching as sauce thickens on the hob or a cake rises and browns in the oven, plus, of course, the washing and tidying up.

• Invite parents into the setting to cook with the children, especially as a way of introducing foods from different cultures.

• Take time to prepare for a cooking session so that everything is to hand and you don't need to leave the cooking area.

• Plan and shop for food to enable children to write shopping lists, choose ingredients, pay for items and engage with the wider community.

• Promote independence through cooking. Ideas include: storing ingredients in manageable-sized tubs labelled with pictures and words; using bowls and tools such as graters with a suction facility where possible; using recipes that have pictures to illustrate the method; allowing children to choose what they would like to make; and talking children through what they are doing, supervising them well and being supportive.

• After cooking, endeavour to have all children sit together to sample what they have made. This encourages children to try new things, discuss likes and dislikes and promotes the social element of cooking.

CASE STUDY: RECIPE BOOKS

'The children in our pre-school room are very enthusiastic about growing vegetables in the nursery garden and then using them in their cooking,' says Chantel Joseph, a nursery practitioner at Bosco Centre Nursery, Rotherhithe, London. 'We enjoy looking at recipe books for inspiration on what to make with our produce - such as potatoes and green beans - as well as other items, cakes being a favourite!

'Recipe books put print in a meaningful context and, added to this, children enjoy mark-making with a purpose so we decided to compile our own recipe books. We started by looking carefully at the recipe books we have in the nursery and seeing what they all have in common - such as a front and back cover, contents page, ingredients lists and method for each of the recipes, showing the sequence in which things should be done, and also pictures. We discussed how not all the pages are the same and different recipes require different ingredients.

'Now, after making a new recipe we'll often add it to our recipe books. This week, we made potato salad. We put some of the items that we'd used on a table as prompts for the children and they drew the spring onions and potatoes and wrote how many spoonfuls of mayonnaise were needed.

'We also include photographs of the children cooking or the finished item on some of the recipes. We laminate the pages, use a hole punch to make holes and fasten them together with string. The books are then kept in the book corner with our other recipe books for reference. Children often look at them, discuss which recipes they wrote or drew themselves and ask to cook things again. They're very proud of them.'