The kitchen is the heart of the home, and children love it. Have you ever noticed that they usually gather in the kitchen when you make dinner?

Probably there is not anything more attractive for a child than mixing different ingredients.

Children have always enjoyed spending time in the kitchen. Cooking together is a great time for both parents and kids as they make new memories and share some happy moments. Indeed, meal preparation-time can become a valuable family bonding opportunity by sharing recipes, cooking tricks, and little degustation. Have you already written your family recipes book? If not, you can take inspiration here.

Moreover, do you know that every time your children cook with you, you are also preparing them for success in life? As a matter of fact, in the kitchen, they train different abilities simultaneously.

Motor skills improve for moving in the space to take ingredients and manipulate them. Naming the ingredients or discussing techniques like whisking, blending, folding, and other terminology is a great way to expand your little one’s kitchen vocabulary. Counting how many minutes the food needs to be in the oven can incite mathematical skills. You also introduce your children to scientific concepts as they see what happens when they mix some ingredients. Given that the kitchen is a world of taste, aromas, and manipulation, even their senses do an engaging train working.

And what about creativity? Getting your littles involved in meal planning can be a great way to let them get creative. Let their creativity flow and follow it. It does not matter if it means changing something in the recipe. Children love to invent and mix, so the kitchen is definitively the best place for being imaginative and active.

That is why it is such an inviting environment for children and the perfect background for role-playing too.

Why kitchen is the perfect role-play background

The kitchen is a popular choice in pretend play. We have already talked about the importance of role-playing for children’s growth and said that children love playing different parts. The kitchen is the perfect background to play. It allows them to imitate situations they are familiar with. So, they perfectly know actions and language schemes to follow.

They have to build imaginative scenarios. There are many things to plan (situations, recipes, ingredients, even utensils to use), and planning allows children to engage in storytelling. As they build the scenario, they verbalize it, above all if the play involves other kids or parents.

Social skills and teamwork benefit from kitchen role-play, as well as self-esteem and independence. Moreover, by promoting different types of pretend food, such as fruit, vegetables, eggs, this role-play encourages children to make healthier food choices.

We would never stop talking about the benefits of role-playing, but it is essential to go to the most fun part. Here there are three examples of playing with pretend food to have a great time with your children.

Cooking dinner for mom and dad anniversary

It is a celebration day! For the occasion, you have asked your favourite chef to come home and make for you the tastiest dinner ever. It is the moment of the official meeting with the chef discussing the details. You want to leave everything to the chef’s creativity, but you have only a request: dinner must be unforgettable.

Your toddler will be so excited to play this role that they will start to cook immediately.

The chef needs a professional kitchen with professional tools for preparing a delicious meal. For your children, it is Toddler Kitchen Set. This fun wooden stove comes with one pot with a lid, one frying pan, one spoon, and one spatula for them to cook with.

What is missing? Cooking essentials, selective ingredients, and the secret for making this one the best dinner ever: love.

Going grocery shopping for the best restaurant in the city

Eggs, vegetables, fruit, meats, fishes, seafood, shellfish, spices, dried fruit, milk, flour, and so on.

The shopping list for a restaurant is so complicated. Better start now! You can help your children simplifying the task by giving these suggestions:

  • Choose the daily menu to create the list
  • Pick the best grocery shop to guarantee quality products.
  • Go early in the morning to find all the needed ingredients.

Today’s menu is a veggie one, so children have to go to their trusted market to purchase the products to make the most appreciated vegetable soup in the city. Only Hape’s fresh vegetables fill the shopping bag. With Toddler Vegetable Basket, children can pop the peas from their pod, peel the cabbage leaves, and cut the carrot and eggplant in half for preparing the soup. While slicing the ingredients and putting them together, kids learn to combine colours, flavours, and categories.

They also make our little ones curious about the world of vegetables, a trick to get them to eat this food.

And for the best fruit cake? Children need only the freshest and flavourful fruit Hape. With Toddler Fruit Basket, your children can peel the banana and slice the other pieces thanks to the safe toy knife.

Your children end the shopping. It is time to get into the kitchen for cooking!

Preparing the perfect snack for little friends

Snack time is coming. Why don’t you ask children to prepare it? They will be so happy to do it with Toddler Bread Basket.

They will enter the kitchen to prepare the cookie dough. While the cooks are in the oven, children start to set the table putting on glasses of fruit juice and some bread to spread with butter and jam.

Cookies are ready! Children are seated to have a snack with you. You can ask them for the recipe of the croissant or choc chip cookies. You can also ask for details about the steps to make the dough. Great storytelling is going to start. Enjoy it.

Have you ever tried such good cookies? Compliment them. In this way, you make your little ones the happiest children in the world.

The kitchen is so entertaining! Share this place with your children and, above all, share kitchen playtime with them. Children can learn and train a lot of abilities they have to use in school and future life. Start now to build these fun family moments!