The Kid’s Plate

Liza Blair

Kitchen as Alternative Learningscape

We’ve heard the saying, It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.  Well the same can be said for how children learn.  Learning that’s more process-based helps children develop stronger visceral and cognitive connections.  This is when the steps to achieving the intended goal are just as important, and sometimes more, than the desired outcome.  This is especially true when working with food.  How to make a salad is about making choices based on experience and curiosity.  What happens if you mix salad greens with beets and egg?  Is it still a salad if there is no lettuce?  Questions like these help a child identify solutions that can lead to the process of understanding.

Process-based learning carries over into everything we do: from designing art and kitchen lessons, to exhibit objectives and writing curriculum.   And sometimes the best learning takes place in the most unexpected places.

CDM’s Culinary Corner is recognizable as a kitchen space.  But it’s also a space for reflection and contemplation, a place for sensory development, a place for peer learning, a place for adult and child engagement, and a place for integrating other modes of teaching, such as science, math, geography, chemistry and language arts.

Utilizing alternative spaces where process-based learning can happen is a fun approach to making learning more interesting, for both the learner and the instructor.  And a kitchen can be just the place.  Kitchens provide a multi-sensory space for young children to experience creative learning.  And it can be fun for parents too.

Every meal is fun with Victoria and her son. Visit www.victoriamasonphotography.com

Here are some suggestions for how to make your kitchen into a creative learningscape:

• Play counting games with ingredients when preparing dinner
• Help with sequencing by following steps in a recipe
• Make up a recipe using new and different ingredients
• Talk about where food comes from and how it grows
• Touch, touch, touch: tearing, smelling, feeling, tasting are all great ways to begin conversations about the food your child eats
• Be creative: find ways to incorporate your child’s school work into a kitchen teaching lesson.  How can steam pressure be taught using boiling water and a kettle?

But most of all have fun.