Serving Up Strong Language, Speech and Academic Skills through Cooking and Kitchen Fun!

By Elizabeth Peterson, Speech-Language Pathologist

Cooking and baking is an outstanding opportunity for building your child’s developmental language, thinking and academic skills through activities that are fun and enjoyable.  Children love to bake. This article will present learning opportunities that are easy to identify and incorporate while bonding with your child during everyday kitchen activities.

Vocabulary Enhancement

Expose your child to vocabulary while organizing the materials needed for dinner or a baking project by naming all of the items required (i.e., pan, drainer, counting out 3 eggs etc.).  Once all of the items are present have your child identify specific objects by asking, “Where is the egg?” “Please hand me the___”. Or “Can you find __”? This will be a natural opportunity for your child to name or identify items.

 To address verbal expression, find ways for your child to identify or describe items. Avoid asking, “What’s this?” or “What’s that”? Your child will feel like they are being tested and may become frustrated and not fully engage in the activity.

Ways to pose questions

What do you want/need?
What can I get you?
Tell me about…
If your child is unable to provide a full response always reward their effort and model a more complete answer. Encourage your child to offer some type of a verbal response as opposed to pointing or gesturing.  For example, if you child responded with “ju” for juice, praise their efforts and model, “Here is the lemon juice”.

Describing Actions and Concepts

Cooking is a great opportunity for labeling actions and exposing your child to language concepts.  Report actions as they are being demonstrated. “I am stirring”. Or “I am cracking an egg”. This will allow your child to associate the action with the language being presented.  Encourage your child to use language to describe what they are doing.  To stimulate a response say, “I am cutting apples. What are you doing?” Ideally your child should report, “Stirring”.  To elicit more language you could say, “Tell me more”. Or “Use your words to tell me about it.” This technique can be used to coach your child into using more words and longer phrases. “I am stirring the dough”. Or “I am stirring the dough in the bowl”. A single word response grew into a longer phrase or sentence

Setting the Table

Have your child set the table for the family.  This is an ideal time to set a pattern and have your child follow it. Following patterns facilitates attention and thinking skills.  It teaches matching and prepares children for reading.  Be rich with concepts.  Have your child count all of the forks needed for the meal or all of the total dishes. Have them count all of the silverware in the dishwasher. Have you child put the silverware away to match items and categorize. While setting the table, discuss things that are round, square, long, short, thin, thick.  There are endless opportunities.  Make a game out of it by asking your child to find something smaller than a dinner plate, longer than a spoon, etc.  Have you child follow directions such as placing the knife next to the plate.  Place the spoon on the napkin.   This is fun for children and they will become more sophisticated with concepts and be better prepared for classroom lessons.

Baking Cookies

This is an easy activity to do with children while providing language and academic teaching moments. After cookies have been placed on the pan, experiment with concepts.  Have your child find cookies on the top and bottom row. Identify cookies in the middle or center. Count cookies in a diagonal position.  Look at all of the concept exposure your child could experience.  Divide the cookie sheet in half and create a pattern on the top and have your child copy it on the bottom half.  If working with cookie cutter designs, follow a specific pattern.  For example, if during the winter holidays create a pattern of a snowman, snowflake, candle, wreath on one row and have your child follow it on the next.  Vary it for the next row and continue. The cookie sheet can be turned the long way for a longer more complex pattern. Discuss concepts such as above, below, next to.  Once all of the cookies have been placed on the sheet have your child identify a particular cookie (wreath) and say, “Find he cookie above the wreath”. Identify another cookie and ask: what is below, next to, on the right of, to the left, etc. Make it play-based. Switch roles and let your child have you find a cookie using the concept words.

Incorporate A Recipe

There are many recipe books available for small children that use short pictures and phrases.  Incorporate them into cooking activities to expose your child to print.  To facilitate reading skills even at a pre-reading age it is ideal to provide your child with as many opportunities to observe letters and printed words.  Follow along with the recipe.  Read the first part together.  Use your finger as a guide pointing attention to each word you read.  After the recipe has been completed review what was done first, second and third to address sequencing and use more descriptive language.  Sequencing is a cognitive skill that promotes logical thinking, order and thought organization.

Play With Textures And Senses

While baking identify textures that are hot, cold, sticky, smooth, rough and compare them.  Bread is smooth until it is toasted then it feels rough.  Cookie batter is smooth and soft until chocolate chips are added then it feels bumpy.  The shell of an egg feels rough, however, egg yolk fees sticky. 

Identify smells. Have you child close their eyes and present them with scents to see if they can guess what they are. Present smells such as pasta sauce, which is nice, but oregano by itself is unpleasant but is an ingredient in the sauce.  Compare salt and sugar.  They look and feel the same but the taste is extremely different!

Be A Problem Solver

Cooking provides many natural opportunities to solve problems and reason. Discovering solutions to problems will promote self worth, confidence and thinking kids. Brainstorm solutions for common kitchen mishaps such as not having the proper pan size for the recipe, missing an ingredient or accidentally adding too much of an ingredient. Facilitate a discussion on how problems can be managed and demonstrate that there are usually more than one choice. Brainstorming more than one solution will promote mental flexibility.

The kitchen is an exciting and motivating place for learning opportunities through activities that are stimulating and exciting.  Exposing your child to language and cognitive activities will strengthen their skills and prepare then to be strong students in school.