• Why do we cook?
• What do we use to cook?
• What do you like to eat?
• Can we try new foods?

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Start conversation about food and cooking. The goal is to introduce your kids to the theme of cooking, and figure out what kind of background knowledge they already have, and what they are interested in learning. Sample questions you might ask:
  • Does anyone in your family cook?
  • What kinds of foods do you like to eat?
  • Have you ever helped your parents cook dinner?
  • Do you have any questions about cooking?
• Read a book (ex: Froggy Bakes a Cake by Jonathan London)

Free Play:

• Allow your kids to free play as normal, but introduce a few cooking related options, like:
  • Kitchen dramatic play (this might be something you always have available, but if not it's easy to turn a shelf and some boxes into a play kitchen)
  • Play dough with cooking utensils
  • Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing
  • Sand play with pots, pans, utensils

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Introduce different cooking utensils (fork, whisk, spoon, spatula, tongs, oven mitts, slotted spoon, measuring spoons). Invite kids to show you how to use each utensil one at a time. You can show additional uses as well (ex: the spatula can be used to lift food, but it can also be used to flip or cut). Sort utensils by function (ex: fork, whisk, and spoon would all go together because they are mixing tools; tongs and oven mitts can go together because they help you hold things, etc.)
• Read a book (ex: The Donut Chef by Bob Staake)

Free Play:

• Kitchen dramatic play (you will likely keep this as an option every day, just pay attention to how the play changes over time and introduce new materials to enhance the play)
• Set out the cooking tools from circle time for kids to explore at a table, or add them to kitchen dramatic play
• Play dough with cooking utensils
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing
• Sand play with pots, pans, utensils

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Who cooks food? Make a list of all the people that cook food. Discuss the difference between, for example, their parents and a chef in a restaurant. Print out a few pictures of chefs you find on the internet. What are they wearing? Why are they wearing it? (You can talk about the hats, bandanas or hair nets they wear, their aprons, the clothes they wear, their comfortable shoes, etc.)
• Revisit the cooking utensils from the day before. You can turn this into a game where each child has a turn to pick a utensil, model how to use it with their body, and then everyone else copies the child.
• Read a book (ex: I Want to be a Chef by Dan Liebman)

Free Play:

• Add in aprons and hats or hair nets to the kitchen dramatic play. When a child is pretending to be a chef ask them to cook you something.
• Play dough with cooking utensils
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing
• Sand play with pots, pans, utensils

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Brainstorm ideas for what you should cook. Write them down on a white board or piece of paper where the kids can see them. Introduce cooking magazines and cook books as places that people look for ideas of what to cook.
• Revisit hand washing. If you are going to be cooking it is important that everyone washes their hands well. Optional to do the Spicy Germs Activity to showcase the importance of hand washing.
• Read a book (ex: Wash, Wash, Wash by Pamela Chanko)

Free Play:

• Put out a variety of magazines (food/cooking magazines if you have them!) Invite kids to make collages of different foods they cut out of the magazine.
• Put cook books in reading corner for kids to look through
• Play dough with cooking utensils
• "Hand Washing" water play

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Cooking new foods can mean trying new foods. Trying new foods can be scary. How do we know if we like foods? Introduce the concept of taste buds (they are all over the insides of our mouths, they tell us what a food tastes like it and whether or not we like it). If you want you can give kids mirrors and have them stick out their tongues to see if they can see their taste buds.
• Bring a snack to circle time for kids to try. Encourage them to think about what they're tasting. Do their taste buds like it?
• Read a book (ex: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss)

Free Play:

• Add baby dolls into kitchen dramatic play. Invite kids to cook new foods for the babies to try.
• Play dough with cooking utensils
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing
• Sand play with pots, pans, utensils

1. Write out a list of the ingredients you need to make your recipe.
2. Take your kids on a trip to the grocery store to buy those ingredients.
3. Model reading the list, finding ingredients, and checking items off the list as you find them

Local businesses are often excited at the prospect of small visitors. If you have a local coffee shop or restaurant, call and see if they would be open to having visitors come in.

If you're able to see the kitchen, challenge kids to find the cooking utensils you've been talking about:

• What do they notice?
• What are the restaurant workers wearing?
• What foods do they see?
• What tools do they see?