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Summer Activities!

Summer is almost upon us once again and one great thing about summer is that it allows extra time for families to spend time together. Activities such as cooking can teach many skills while being fun and educational at the same time.

Families can start small and build up to bigger and better creations. While cooking students can learn many skills. The following list was on the Norton’s Childrens Hospital website entitled “Cooking activities for kids can teach confidence and skills that can prepare them for a lifetime of healthy habits.”

Here are seven skills that your children can develop while helping in the kitchen:

  1. Explore their senses. Invite children, especially younger ones, to experience the activity of the kitchen. If you’re baking bread, for example, kids can listen to the whir of a mixer, pound dough and watch it rise, smell it baking in the oven and finally taste the warm bread fresh from the oven. If it smells good, looks appealing and is easy to eat, they may just be willing to try it! Seeing you enjoy the process of cooking healthy meals can help them see cooking as fun and not a chore. Processed foods are readily available and fast; watching you take the time to make a quick, healthy meal instead of something fast can help reinforce the behavior as they grow and start making food choices on their own.

  2. Expand their palate. If you have picky eaters, bringing them into the kitchen to help cook can help open them up to new foods and flavors. Introducing new foods to children may be more successful if you introduce only one new food at a time along with something that you know your child likes. Consider trying healthy recipes from different countries and cultures to not only expand the palate, but your child’s worldview.

  3. Working in the kitchen provides kids and teens opportunities to gain a sense of accomplishment. Even if the end result is not exactly what you expected, praise your kitchen helpers for their efforts.

  4. Making healthy choices. Planning a menu and grocery list is an opportunity to explain smart food choices. Talk to your child about different food groups and encourage him or her to try new foods. Kids who have a hand in making the vegetables may be a little more willing to try a sample when they sit down at the dinner table.

  5. Responsibility. From following a recipe and learning how to safely handle kitchen equipment to cleaning up spills and putting things away, helping in the kitchen provides ample opportunities for children and teens to learn responsibility.

  6. Sharing good conversation. Share with your child or teen family stories and recipes. Or ask thought-provoking questions about food choices, school, friends and other activities. Developing these conversations while preparing dinner teaches your child how to carry on a thoughtful conversation and can enhance your relationship.

  7. Basic math, science and language skills. As kids learn to crack eggs and stir sauce, they also gain new science, language and math skills. Basic math skills (“How many eggs do we need?”) and sequencing skills (“What is first … next … last?”) give way to fractions (“Is this ¾ of a cup?”) as your child gains confidence in the kitchen. Reading recipes helps improve reading comprehension, and you can demonstrate basic science principles with something as simple as salt sprinkled on an ice cube.

I also wanted to share the following which I shared last year at this same time and it follows.

Summer is almost here,and I’m excited to share some outdoor time with my cousin who will be in 9th grade in the Fall. I work with him during the school year, helping out with his homework and studying for quizzes and tests. We work especially hard on Math, and he has shown tremendous growth and I want to keep it going. So I have been looking for ways to incorporate Math into the activities he enjoys. Here are a few ideas I have come up with so far:

  1. Having him pay with cash when we go somewhere, and then checking to see if he receives the correct change.

  2. Letting him help with navigation to the places we go. Which direction are we going? How many gallons of gas do we need?

  3. He enjoys baseball, and there are many statistics that we can talk about and how they are figured.

  4. Cooking may not be his favorite activity, but occasionally I can get him to help out. We talk about measurements and conversions. When we have cookouts, he gets to figure out how many hotdogs, hamburgers, etc. we need for everyone.

  5. When we go shopping for shoes or something he truly wants, we get the opportunity to compare prices and to figure out how much 20% off saves us.

  6. I am hoping to build a project with him, and we can use the tape measure and figure out the amount of materials we will need.

  7. I take him out to eat, and I have him look at the calories we will consume. He can also help me figure out the tip.

  8. We play board games like Monopoly, and this includes money skills and budgeting. Battleship helps with graphing and logical reasoning. Connect 4, Clue, Chess, and Checkers help with planning strategy. Yahtzee and Rummikub are fun ways to work on math skills as well.

  9. He spends much of his time playing video games, so I encourage him to play games that involve strategy and planning.

I also encourage him to read all year long, but especially in the summer. I must admit, this has undoubtedly been a challenge! These are some ideas that I have used, or that I am planning to use over the summer.

  1. I take him to the library. I can’t always get him to read while we are there, but they always have a puzzle out so we work on it, and I encourage him to find something to check out.

  2. I am also going to encourage him to listen to audiobooks over the summer to see if he would enjoy them.

  3. I buy him used comic books which he seems to genuinely enjoy. They are inexpensive, and he will usually read them. I try to ask lots of questions about them when he has finished, so we can work on comprehension.

  4. When we build our project, I will have him read any written directions that we come across.

  5. I will also take any chance I get to have him read in any activity that we do. He can read directions when we are playing games, and he can read recipes or the grocery list when we go to the store.

These are just a few ideas that I have come up with. There are many other ideas, activities, and a wealth of information available with a search on the Internet. What ideas do you use with your students or children that you have found to be successful? Please share with me via the comments section.

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Comments 1

Guest
Guest - Glenda Thompson on Friday, 20 May 2022 06:31

Read a storybook for 20 minutes each day, or for older children, start a chapter book at the beginning of summer with the goal of finishing by the end of summer.

Start a puzzle at the beginning of summer with the goal of finishing by the end of summer.
Great for those rainy days!

Read a storybook for 20 minutes each day, or for older children, start a chapter book at the beginning of summer with the goal of finishing by the end of summer. Start a puzzle at the beginning of summer with the goal of finishing by the end of summer. Great for those rainy days!
Guest
Tuesday, 19 March 2024

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