Teaching Life Skills – Kids in the Kitchen

Getting Organized:
In your home and homeschool

 

     

How often do your children cook? Teaching your children to menu plan, cook, and clean up is a big set of life skills. As you are transitioning into summer, you can assign a Head Chef of the Day. Involve your children in the whole process of menu planning and shopping. Let them learn to cook what interests them. You will be raising good eaters and helping them gain life skills.
Teach them to clean the kitchen as they go. Fill up one side of the sink to place dirty things. Then rinse them and put them on the dish rack or in the dishwasher. When we load the dishwasher after dinner it is only the dishes and bowls that we used at the table. The rest of the pots and pans have already been washed and put away.
Teach them to cut vegetables in a safe manner. Until they are teenagers, I do most of the vegetable chopping. But they do need to learn this skill, too. We make a lot of salads, and if you eat many salads, you know how much time can go into chopping vegetables. I do buy the organic mixed green salad mixes in a big container each week. That helps a little bit, but I buy seasonal vegetables that require washing, peeling, and chopping.
Teach your children how to use leftovers creatively. Browned ground beef can be fixed in many ways. We use it for tacos, taco soup, chili, beef noodles, beef and cooked cabbage, and more. It is a menu stretcher for me.
Breakfast can be a fun meal to learn how to cook. There are so many ways to cook eggs. We also enjoy waffles or pancakes. We eat different kinds of breakfast meats. I work hard at providing a balance of carbs and proteins for their breakfast. Oatmeal and fruit or yogurt makes a great meal, too.
Lunch planning usually happens at dinner for us. We see what we have leftover, and we talk about ways it can be used for lunch the next day. We also make cheese quesadillas, grilled cheese, soup, subs, or other sandwiches.
Your children need to learn the balance of the different types of foods we need for a healthy diet. Teach them while they are young.
It’s a great time of year to teach your children about gardening. Let them pick some vegetables to plant. They will be invested in the process and may try vegetables that they do not normally eat.
Your Zone Mission today is to clear off the bathroom cabinets.
Your Home Blessing for today is to wash sheets.
My menu plan for Monday is hamburgers and salad.
Have a great day!

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About Tami

Tami Fox is a homeschool mom of 6, who in age from 26 to 11. She and her husband have homeschooled for 17 years and have graduated three of their children from their homeschool. They are currently homeschooling 3 boys who are in grades 11, 9, and 6. They use hands-on learning and unit studies to ignite the fire of learning in their children. Tami is a homeschool author and conference speaker. You can contact her by email at Tami@TamiFox.com. Buy her book, Giving Your Children Wings at https://tamifox.net/giving-your-children-wings/.

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