We often avoid cooking with young children because of the danger associated with hot appliances. But you can cook a wide variety of snacks and meals without using heat. We’ve included a few “cool” recipes in this article along with a list of benefits cooking offers to young children. So roll up your sleeves and get cooking!

The Benefits of Cooking with Young Children
Everyone agrees that children appreciate a wider variety of food when they participate in preparation. And, don’t be surprised at the number of skills you help children develop along the way. Here are just a few of the reasons to start cooking with your children.
Cooking encourages creativity. Allow children to make decisions, add extra features, and do as much of the work as possible. Praise youngsters for experimenting and making something different. For example, the Happy Face Salad activity below gives children the opportunity to be creative and unique.
Cooking teaches how things change. Through various processes in the kitchen – heating, freezing, grinding, and beating – food is made ready to eat. Cooking can be a great big science experiment Through the simple mixing of ingredients or watching water boil or freeze, children can experience different states of matter.
Cooking builds self-confidence. Realizing they can take part in and contribute to the adult world, provides great satisfaction for children and develops positive self-esteem.
Cooking experiences develop children’s small motor control. Using cooking tools, such as shredders, graters, grinders, and melon ballers develops fine motor skills and adds to a healthy self-concept.
Cooking teaches about other cultures. Food preparation is universal to all people regardless of our individual culture.  A cooking snack from another culture helps children learn more about other countries.

Recipes for Cool Cooking
Encourage young children to add their own measure of creativity with these easy, no-heat recipes. Creating recipe cards is easy by drawing pictures on index cards.
Bugs on a Log
Scrub celery sticks with a vegetable brush. Cut into three-inch pieces. Fill the groove with cream cheese or peanut butter. Place raisins on top for bugs.
Shape Kabobs
Cut cheese into bite-size triangle shapes. Slice into a square, then into two triangles.
Cut carrots in circles. For extra fun, count the circles and sort from largest to the smallest.
Cut celery in rectangles.
Cut cucumbers in circles.
Directions: Put the various foods into separate bowls. Then have each child create a colorful and nutritious kabob using toothpicks.

Happy Face Salad
1 pineapple ring
2 tablespoons cottage cheese
1/4 cup grated cheese
2 stuffed olives
8 raisins
Directions: Have your child assemble the pineapple ring on a plate. Then have them add a mound of cottage cheese in the center, grated cheese for hair, olives for eyes, raisins for a mouth. Encourage the children to create different types of faces – happy or sad or excited!

With all the sunshine things you do,
The smiles you share -the laughter, too -
With all the dreams you make come true…
It’s great to have a kid like you!

Happy Valentine’s Day

So often we as dedicated parents and teachers spend much time and energy assessing our young children’s cognitive abilities. Their “academic” skills often take precedence over other areas of development in gaining adult praise and attention.

As we look at our “high tech” contemporary world, what comes to mind is how often little priority is given to a child’s social-emotional development.  Lillian Katz, a renown early childhood educator states, “Time has come to shift our educational discourse from the traditional 3R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) to the 4R’s – the first of which should be RELATIONSHIPS.”

The foundation of social competency involves a complex interplay of feelings, thought and skills.  This foundation is laid by parents, teachers, caregivers and other adults in the early years of development.  Research shows that children who fail to achieve minimal social competence during the early years are AT RISK for developing academic failure, delinquency and mental health problems. Important components of social competency include social skills, social understanding, social knowledge and emotional regulation.  It is our challenging task to teach the awareness and skills necessary through everyday lessons to be “emotionally and socially healthy” children and ultimately adults!  Modeling, coaching, and providing opportunities to practice these social skills and understanding is key.

*Developing a positive self-identity

*Feeling empathy

*Developing feelings of competence

*Recognizing and labeling emotions

*Developing a sense of community

*Engaging in cooperative play

*Valuing diversity

*Developing a framework of moral behavior

*Engaging in conflict resolution

*Creating and following rules

*Creating and participating in democracy

What is really important in the realm of personal-social development of young children is the child’s capacity to form intimate, caring, reciprocal relationships with adults and peers.

In a word: Yes!

As parents, we are often bombarded with suggestions and ideas of things we should do with our children.  At the end of a long day of work or caring for children we often we just want to have some peaceful and quiet time.  Those feelings are ones that all parents experience.

Let me share the good news of what many parents have discovered!  Reading a book to your child IS like finding that peaceful and quiet time. Even 15 minutes, in that setting helps us as parents to get back on track AND makes a very good investment in our child’s future academic pursuits.

We can never forget that children are creatures of pleasure, just like us! If they enjoy something and have positive experiences with it, they tend to continue to do that activity.  If they don’t like it, they will avoid it, just like us!

Research strongly supports how important it can be for children to acquire the habit that reading every day is a fun and pleasurable activity. For some more reasons why:

–Grade School Students who report that they enjoy reading for “fun” or as a hobby consistently score higher on achievement test than students who don’t.

. This U.S. Department of Education analysis done in the last few y ears found that children who were read to at least 3 times a week by a family member at home were almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading than children who were read to less time.

Just like physical exercise, the benefits add up when you do something regularly.

So It IS Worth It!

With so many ideas on ways to build reading aloud into your routine, there is surely one to fit your lifestyle and busy schedule. There is no greater reward than reading with your children. You’ve carved out a very important time for connecting with your child AND given them the opportunity to to do better in their future.

Read every day with your children – you’ll be glad you did

This Article is By:

Kathy Leiblich,MA Ed. Former Mahwah Director and now After School Coordinator of East Rutherford

ALL LOCATIONS ARE OPEN TODAY FEB 1, 2011

NORMAL HOURS

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