Kids in the Kitchen Activities

I love having my little sous chef in the kitchen!

Mother Goose Time had some great "In the Kitchen" Activities this week 

from our Health and Fitness Unit.

Here are some of our faves.

(LOTS and lots of pictures... but that's not really anything new to you regular readers ;)   )

Cleaning and Safety:

"Wash your hands and say your prayers because Jesus and germs are everywhere!"

Avaleigh constructed all sorts of germs using our shape manipulatives from MGT.  Not only did she review the names of her shapes, she created some germs of her own.

Everett loved sitting nearby and drew his FIRST picture!!  It's getting framed, yall.

Measure and Pour:

Shape recipes was a super hit!

First we pretended the shapes were certain foods.  The orange pieces were carrots, the hexagons were her mini pancakes (she eats those daily), the green triangles were green beans, and so on.

We then reenacted the stories on the cards.  She did really great with this activity, although she was quite the perfectionist when stacking her shapes on top of her hexagon.... it almost led to a meltdown, but she got it together and kept working at it.  That smile says it all...

Chop and Stir: 

Avaleigh stirred primary colors together to create secondary colors.

She has her color mixing memorized, but it's always magical when you see the colors transform.  MGT suggested we stir colors together in our Invitation to Create.  Just add shaving cream, a touch of paint, some glitter and a spoon and you too can make soup fitting for every Grandparent.  

Just listen to Avaleigh explain hers in the video below... so cute! 

MGT sent us these cute cutting boards and numbered bowls along with a wooden knife.

After rolling out the play dough, Avaleigh lined up her dough on the cutting board, cut the log with her knife, counted the pieces, and then placed them into the corresponding bowl.

Hers what happened thought (to the tune of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie):

If you give a preschooler a cutting board with a picture of a banana, she's going to ask for a real banana. When you give her the banana, she's going to want a plate to put her slices on.  When she sits down with her plate of bananas, your lesson will be over because now... it's snack time. 

Bake and Cook:

After discussing what we bake in our oven (lasagna- her fave, brownies, cookies, potatoes), we set out making an oven from a diaper box.  This was our STEAM acvitity suggested by MGT and I am so glad we did it! She helped glue the foil on, and I mad a handle from 2 unifix cubes and an extra popsicle stick.  Presto Chango!

We then made pizza for our play oven and then danced the Pizza Dough Boogie, Banana Boogie and all the other Dance and Beat songs on YouTube, cuz yall...it's rained FORRRR EVVVVER!!! 

Her moves are a little stiff and totally remind me of Elaine on Seinfeld! Ha!

 

We then got into the kitchen and made lasagna!  She put all her learning into action and helped me make 5 8x8  pans of lasagna (Pioneer Woman's recipe- it really is the BEST)

Last but certainly not least,

Set and Serve:

Our highlight was learning how to set the table and then play Restaurant, aka Serving Friends lesson. I taught her the correct way to set the table and she made name cards for the 4 of us.

Writing the name card for our places was such great practice on writing all sorts of letters.   

MGT sent a food sheet (we cut out the food) and menu for our Serving Friends lesson.  After cutting our food from the food sheet, we placed it in the play kitchen of the playroom which is adjacent to our dining room. We then took turns playing customer (one of us sitting at the dining table) and waitress (one of us going back and forth from the play kitchen to the dining room).   

She calls this game Restaurant and wants to play it everyday.  I love how she used a tray to carry the food- totally her idea!

So many pictures... so many videos....so much fun... and so many memories.

Have fun with your littles in the Kitchen this week!

Happy Cooking!