Preschools use fun recipes that are easy for children to understand. Teachers let them follow along and participate in the preparation. They learn to identify the words on the recipe with the appropriate food items and the ingredients. In the process, preschoolers develop important visual connections to associate words that help build reading development and comprehension skills.
Using cooking and recipes also helps preschoolers learn math skills. For example, they get to count out how many cups of milk are needed to make a smoothie, how many strawberries and so on. They also learn measurements by practicing things like learning when the milk they pour reaches the mark for one-half cup.
A highly instructive learning technique that preschools utilize is to gather an assortment and quantities of food items together in one big pile or basket, and have the children retrieve the items as the teacher calls them by name. This technique incorporates the development of word association skills that teach preschoolers how to identify objects appropriately and sort them from other objects.
Cooking can be effectively used to teach preschoolers about speed. Educators can use recipes that call to mix something fast or slow, and challenge the child to use judgment to determine when something is at medium speed. Kids also learn rhythm in the process and build the dexterity of the use of their arms, hands and fingers.
Educators teach kids valuable learning about the importance of safety when cooking. They learn when things are hot, and how to handle hot foods safely and how to allow foods to cool down before they eat them. The importance of hand washing is also reinforced by using cooking as a teaching technique.
Tiny hands learn the difference between eating utensils and how to use them properly. They also get to experiment with cooking utensils and learn the difference between sizes, use and how they are different from eating utensils.
A great long-term benefit of using cooking to teach preschoolers is teaching them how to eat healthy. Most preschool kid-size stoves and ovens come with an assortment of plastic foods that include meats, vegetables and desserts. Educators take the opportunity to teach children while they are young to appreciate making dishes that combine the basic food groups and prepare a balanced meal. Parents can maximize opportunities for "teachable moments" that can be transferred to the "real food" dinner table and build healthy eating habits.