Cookbooks are books too. An easy, fun, and interactive way to “read” with our kids this holiday season is to use cookbooks! As we BOOK TIME WITH OUR KIDS, we can turn reading into DOING!

There are so many benefits to using cookbooks with our kiddoes. We’re asking them to read, think, evaluate, and create all at the same time! As a retired teacher, I like that we’re covering a lot of Bloom’s Taxonomy with this family activity.

Here’s a simple step-by-step activity to follow if you’d like to integrate cooking into a holiday routine:

1. Look through your cookbooks and decide which ones may offer some nice selections for your child, based on their age, their food tastes and your holiday plans.
2. Go through some recipe ideas with your child, reading ingredients. Let your child choose a recipe that they’d like to put together with you (comparing, evaluating).
3. Plan a time to go to the grocery store or the farmer’s market together to select fresh ingredients (comparing, contrasting, evaluating).
4. Assemble your ingredients and read through the recipe again with your child (organizing).
5. CREATE the recipe together, following the directions and re-reading line by line (creating, the top level of Blooms!). Let your child take the lead with measuring, pouring, mixing, etc.
6. Set the table together. This is becoming a lost art…..teach them about where utensils go and how to properly set a nice, simple table.
7. Eat and enjoy, as a family!…..and let them take pride in the decision making, the selection, and the delicious result of your reading/cooking project.

Or, if that’s just too many steps, select a recipe you know will work and get to work on step 5, creating and cooking together!

As a parent, you’ve just been READING with your child, CREATING with your child, and TEACHING THEM about healthy foods and choices. And the best part of all, you’ll have something fun and delicious to enjoy together as a result.

Teaching our littles about cooking can lend itself to teaching about nutrician as well. Booking Time with our Kiddoes in this way can lead into conversations about the importance of healthy eating and how it can provide healing in our perfectly designed bodies. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.“ By cooking with our littles, we are having fun and we are incorporating reading, teaching, and interacting all at the same time….a pretty perfect scenario for upcoming holiday time with our families. I know, the nutrician piece may be a “stretch” if we’re making pies and cookies…..but the FUN part still stands!

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