It’s World Food Day today (16th October 2021) hence we decided to share some recipes with parents looking for fun, yummy hands-on activities that are also educational!
Did you know that cooking with your children is one of the best ways to ‘unconsciously’ build their vocabulary and develop their reading skills? So, we want to share recipes for two healthy, child-friendly dishes with you that you can have fun preparing with your kiddo(s)! The recipes include options for the ingredients so you can let your child decide what he/she likes, then purchase them together. You can find these recipes at the end of this article.
Recipe #1 - Yummy Wrap
In this dish, you will use vegetables and at least one protein. Do share the benefits of vegetables and proteins with your child. For example, “Vegetables have lots of vitamins and they can help you poo poo too!”, “Eating proteins like meat is good for growing your muscles!"
Teach your child the names of the vegetables and protein. Talk about the different parts of the vegetable (leaf, stem, carrots are roots...), describe how the sauces taste and ask him/her what they like about the meat/protein!
Let your child wash, peel and/or carefully cut the ingredients, spread the sauce(s) and wrap the wrap with your help. These activities are great for practicing fine motor skills!
Recipe #2 Fruit Satay
This dish is a good way to get your child to eat more fruits (in place of ice cream)!
While preparing the “fruit satay”, do teach your child the importance of having fruits in daily life! You can also talk about the colours, shapes, flavours, textures and nutritional benefits of the fruits when you interact with your child.
For example, “ This is a banana, its skin is yellow but the inside is white! Does it look like a smiley mouth? Let us take a bite, does it taste sweet? Is it soft or hard?”
You can also extend this by e.g. matching objects with similar colours to the fruits. For instance, “Ah, this rubber duckie is yellow too, just like the banana? Do you see anything else that is yellow?”
Let your child peel, de-leaf, cut, etc the fruits if possible and let him/her pick the fruit pieces he wants to assemble (carefully) on his/her satay stick. Again, this is a great way to train your child’s fine motor skills!
As promised, click the link below to get the 2 recipes. Happy trying!
Comments