Cooking Class for Children

I like cooking very much. I never told to all of you about this hobby before, even in my profile. I like cooking especially for dinner. My favorite recipes are fried rice, fried noodle, spaghetti bolognaise sauce, spaghetti with Indonesian taste, Chinese food, sandwich, mini pizza. Why I like cooking, because I want to make healthy food for my family. Without using a lot of flavoring which harmful for our health. I think "home cooking" with good processing will give benefit to our health.

Yesterday when I watched my television yesterday I found great topic. "Cooking Class for Children". I know that cooking class usually for mom or housewife, but this is made me curious to know more deep about this class. That's why I use this topic to this hub. My teacher instinct push me to write about this topic.

As we know that children world was filled with playing. How to guide them with useful activities. And cooking class is one of the useful activities for them.

Maybe we don't ever think about this. Have you ever thought to involve the children in cooking? The first impression is the kitchen would be messy. Don't ever think negatively, but when we practice this well, we will get a lot of benefit. Delicious food, the soft of ice cream, the fragrant of spice is the knowledge that stimulate children to learn in the kitchen. This exploration activities brought a new knowledge for the children. Through a variety of different taste, texture and smell made them to know the new environment. They will realized, senses and organs useful for taste and act on something.

Learning to cook can be done anywhere. One of them is kitchen or dining room. From these place they not only know the differences in hard-soft vegetables, cheese texture and the differences of aroma from various spices , they also learned how to use the senses and organs to process food. 

Nutrition expert believe that children will learn and observe from the food which also easily identified from various food. By holding pieces of cheese or carrots, the children did not hesitate to try and learn from these things. What the parents can be done is involved in making the food they like.  For example, slicing vegetables for scrambled eggs, stirring the batter and decorate food. As a parent we have to know the composition or the right nutrition for children. Like :

• Carbohydrates, rice, noodles, pasta, potatoes, flour, sugar
• Protein : meat, fish, chicken, eggs, milk and its products, Various nuts
• Fats: oils, margarine, butter
• Vitamins and minerals: vegetables and fruit

We can get a lot of benefit by teaching children to cook. There are short term benefit and long term benefit. Please take a look.

Short term benefit:

• Increased self-confidence, that they can give contribution for the family by helping to cook.
• Learn to improve creativity, agility, and collaboration capabilities of children.
• By own cooking, children will better appreciate the food.
• increase knowledge of children for food and healthy nutrition for consumption
• Strengthen relationships between parents and children.
• They will be more appreciated "home cooking" than junk food.
• Parents can spend quality time with the kids

Long term benefit:

• Learn to cook is children skill and it can be used for life.
• They'll get used to eating healthy foods and it will be taken until they adult.
• Cooking class is good experience and they will use this when they separated with the parents someday.
  
• They become independent child,
  

I found something new in the cooking course. They not only learn about various ingredients into tasty food, as well as they learn math, geography, and biology.The children can learn about cooking while playing. Like, when they want to cook spaghetti they will described where is the spaghetti came from. Then the children were asked to open the world map pages to indicate where is the Italy. Then they asked to observe about the ingredients like chili. the children indirectly explore the biology lesson. When they learn the composition and the dosage used to make the dough, the children can learn mathematics.

Hopefully, after the course, the children do not hesitate in using kitchen equipment. They also can help the parents make the daily dish. They know the various kinds of kitchen tools and functions. the children not only learn about theory of recipes but they can practice directly at the same time. Usually all the materials have been provided. They just follow the instructions from the instructor, they were very patient and close to the children. Usually the result of this course can be taken home and can be shown to the parents.

The important things when we teach the children to cook is we must accompany the child to learn to recognize the benefits and risks of cooking tools, such as knives, grated tools, or fire from the stove and oven which are hot. By introducing tools and functions, the children learn to anticipate when these objects invite danger. Clearly, the kitchen is not only the central processing food materials, but the practical laboratory which must be exist in every home.

I am not cooking expert and not a mother who usually cook in the kitchen but I want this hub  made us to open our eyes about the other lesson that we can give to our children. Who knows they are very talented and they will become a great chef someday.