Cooking is a great way to develop a range of difficult skills and create many learning opportunities with your child! Here are some examples of how your can support your child during cooking activities:

• Encourage them to explore the feel / smell / taste (if appropriate) of all the different ingredients that are going into the mixture.
• Count the ingredients with your child
• Discuss how ingredients feel, using words such as rough / smooth, hard / soft, hot / cold
• Highlight to your child that when foods are going into the oven they will be hot, and when going into the fridge they will be cold
• Support your child to observe foods as they change through cooking or being mixed together (you can use terms such as melted or frozen)
• Encourage your child to grasp utensils such as wooden spoons, sieves, whisks etc and to use as independently as they can
• If making foods that create a dough, allow your child to manipulate the dough into different shapes using their hands, rolling pins or cookie cutters,
• Most importantly, have fun! Don't worry about the outcome, it is the fun and process that will create the best learning opportunities and engagement with you and your child.

Below I will include a selection of different links to recipes that we are using this term.