Cooking is a life skill that fosters creativity and clarity among kids. It shouldn't be viewed as an adult-specific activity as not only is it recreational but also teaches the kid a lot about detail orientation and the environment. It's also a therapeutic process because the result is very rewarding and delicious. For parents who constantly look for indulging and engaging activities to teach their kids science and mathematics, cooking can be a great activity to begin with.
Measuring ingredients, understanding the health benefits of vegetables and spices, and enhancing precision are some of the major key benefits of making your child learn cooking at an early age. It is also a learning-by-doing approach, which allows you to build a closer relationship with your child.
Here are some of the top benefits of introducing cooking into your child's everyday activities and how it will enhance their math and science skills.
Counting and measurement of ingredients is an integral part of cooking a delicious dish. If you want to bake a cake, then it is important to measure the amount of flour with a measuring cup. Similarly, counting the number of tomatoes to be used to make pasta is also necessary to keep quantity in mind. If your child is in the early stages of development where you need to make them understand concepts such as weight proportions, and numbers, introducing cooking can be a great idea. Give them small assistant tasks such as counting vegetables or pouring ingredients into utensils using a measuring cup.
To cook a dish, one has to follow a series of step-by-step instructions. This requires wanting to be very attentive to the sequence of steps that they are following. Hence, cooking can be a great way to introduce the importance of sequencing and following a proper structure to kids. This also helps in eradicating confusion related to follow-up counts and the logic behind it.
Cooking is a dynamic activity that involves the usage of multiple ingredients, such as spices, vegetables, flour, and a lot more. Generally, kids learn about nutrients, their sources, and health benefits through the help of books. However, to introduce the concept of nutrition and the science behind it, parents can take the help of cooking as an activity.
To be good at math, a child needs to be a very spontaneous problem solver. Cooking requires a similar skill set as one must constantly work with different ingredients and figure out ways to enhance the dish's flavor. If something goes wrong, the person cooking must fix the dish with alternative ingredients. Becoming a part of such an activity will allow the child to become more mentally present and a great problem solver when it comes to math questions.
For example, green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are rich in calcium and potassium. On the other hand, flours such as ragi and wheat are full of fiber. Additionally spices like Turmeric have anti-inflammatory benefits. So, learning about all these food condiments can accelerate scientific learning.
Cooking requires the food to be cooked on the gas stove at different temperatures, depending upon what is being cooked and the texture required. Fluctuating the amount of heat provided to the food is a skill that determines how the food will taste. Children can learn about the concept of temperature and its effect on several types of food with various textures. Also, through boiling water, children can be taught the process of evaporation and condensation.
Fractions are learned by children to understand the concept of a whole and a part of the whole. Directly introducing them to numbers like ¾ or ⅕ might make them a bit confused. Through cooking, one can explain what is meant by a whole thing. For example, you can give your child an onion and call it a whole. Now cut into half and explain that one of the two parts is ½ of the whole. Keep educating them with more complex fractions through the aid of cooking.
The fungus may start growing on a fruit or a vegetable if it's exposed to a lot of moisture for a very long amount of time. It can be white or green and color. The concept of fungus is taught to kids in science class. Being a part of the kitchen, children can learn about these organisms from an early age. Similarly, in the kitchen, one must be attentive to bacterial infestation. If a child takes active participation in the kitchen, then their knowledge about these organisms is more intricate and diverse from an early age.
Cooking is an activity that is full of a lot of joy and learning. Of course, it helps a child to become creative and learn the necessary survival skills of cooking. However, it also has a lot of direct benefits towards making a child better at mathematics and science. Parents must encourage children to become a part of these chores for the child’s betterment.