Helping with Cooking

What you need

• ingredients for a cake, pudding or pancakes
• container with a secure lid

What to do

Add your ingredients for the cake, pudding or pancake into the container. Secure the lid tightly and let your child shake it to their heart’s content. If your child is old enough, let them help with the pouring of ingredients and show them how you measure the right amounts of each ingredient.

What they learn

Children normally see the result of cooking and not what goes into making something such as a cake. They will see that when you mix wet and dry ingredients you obtain a slushy mixture and, as you add more liquid, the mixture gets runnier. This activity lets you engage in simple maths when counting and measuring ingredients such as 3 cups of flour or 2 eggs. You can also discuss how muscles become tired when shaking the ingredients.

Encouragement questions

• How much do we need to shake it?
• How long can you keep shaking until your arm gets tired?
• What should we add to make the mixture thicker/runnier?
• How long will it take to cook?