Budding junior chefs recently had the chance to cook with Mom or Dad at the Yummy Kidchen Workshop, in partnership with The Arton, Rockwell Land’s latest business and lifestyle community in the north. Little hands were kept busy creating snacks using recipes prepared by Chef Sharwin Tee, host of the Lifestyle Network’s Curiosity Got the Chef.
The activity was fun all throughout, with kids and their parents working together to come up with dishes that both taste and look great. Watch how the workshop went:
Chef Sharwin is also a huge advocate of cooking with kids at home. It’s a great bonding activity that you can do instead of, say, spending the afternoon at the mall. “Maybe treat it as a special activity during the weekend,” says the chef. You can even prepare matching aprons for you and your kids!
We asked parents at the workshop to let us in on what they learned about cooking with kids:
1. Things will get messy, but you get to have fun together.
Cooking is a messy business, and when kids are involved, expect a lot more disorder in the kitchen. “It’s ten times messier when you cook with the kids,” says Baby, who tries to make pancakes with her son Sancho, 7, and daughter Tiza, 9, every weekend. “So we just wipe and clean as we go.” You can also make cleanup easier by spreading a plastic sheet on the floor or putting a tray underneath your kid’s workstation. Ultimately, though, you’ll have more fun if you just let the mess happen and then clean up together at the end.
2. Your kids end up eating more or trying other food.
Involving kids in the process of cooking—washing the veggies or mashing potatoes, for example—increases the chance that they’ll actually eat the finished dish. “It is better when my son helps cook the food,” says Andrea, who usually makes pasta with her seven-year-old son, Andre. “He ends up eating more when we make it together.” Cooking with your children is also a great way to introduce them to new food. Who knows? They may even discover a new favorite!
3. Your kids will learn the importance of an organized space.
Kids are still developing their motor skills when they start helping in the kitchen. Usually, their movements are big and exaggerated, which is why it’s important to have more space for them to comfortably move around in. A spacious, open-plan kitchen with provisions for well-organized storage is a big plus in modern condominium developments like The Arton, a high-rise community by Rockwell in the Katipunan area.
4. Your kids learn essential skills.
Apart from providing your kids with basic cooking skills that they can use for the rest of their lives, cooking at an early age provides practical skills such as reading, following directions, measuring, counting, and sequencing. Cooking also helps your child fine-tune his or her motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
5. You will get to know your children and they, you.
Cooking with children offers an opportunity to bond and communicate with them. This time spent together in the kitchen becomes even more important as your kids reach their adolescent and teenage years. Joy, mom to 12-year-old Juan, adds that kitchen time takes children away from their gadgets, saying, “For a few hours, your kids can focus on something else aside from their phones, and they learn the value of spending time with their parents or with family.”
Check out the North Tower at The Arton to see a prime example of an efficient and stylish kitchen that you and your kids would love to cook in. The North Tower is also home to amenities that can give you a variety of opportunities to bond as a family.
Source: https://www.yummy.ph/lessons/5-great-things-that-happen-when-you-cook-with-your-kids-adv-con
