Too Many Cooks???

There is no such thing as too many cooks at Oakwood House. The children in our younger Pre-School room have been practicing their cooking skills and modelling their very smart new chef outfits. They have been busy helping prepare their own tea and also have enjoyed baking. The children have been learning and practising a wide range of skills, and have been developing their understanding of food and where it all comes from.

Some of the basic cooking skills they have been learning: • Buttering a slice of bread. • Cracking eggs • Decorating cakes • Kneading and rolling out dough using a rolling pin. • Cutting shapes out using cookie cutters. • Using a sieve • Cutting fruit and vegetables • Peeling vegetables with a vegetable peeler.

Encouraging children to cook helps develop the key skills outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework: Personal, social and emotional development - Tasting new foods and discussing children’s likes and dislikes. Developing skills such as chopping, mixing, rolling and mashing. Eating and sharing food with others. Communication and language - Talking and listening to others. Developing language – descriptive words linked to cooking. Being involved in role-play activities – shopping for ingredients. Cooking encourages children to develop new food words and form opinions to reinforce language development. Literacy – Linking to stories and songs involving food. Stories and poems linked to food Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy - Weighing and measuring ingredients. Counting and sequencing. Investigating the shapes and sizes of different foods. Understanding the world - Using different pieces of equipment. Learning about where our food comes from. Finding out about food from around the world. Physical development - Talking about and eating food that keep us healthy. Safe use of equipment, developing manipulative skills. Expressive arts and design - Use of the senses – taste, smell, touch and feel, sounds and appearance of food. Maths – Measuring and weighing and opportunities to investigate, predict, experiment and observe.

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