My boys and I are part of a pretty exclusive cooking club.
And when I say it’s exclusive, that’s because there are only four of us involved. Me, Jackson, Sawyer and Ford… the coolest cooking club around!
I had the idea at the beginning of this summer that it would be fun to have an activity with the boys that was just for us. The problem is, me and my boys don’t really have much in common so a shared activity we all liked seemed tough… until I thought of a cooking club! I think I’ve mentioned before when we made Rice Krispy treats or that other time we designed toast creatures one of my greatest hopes for them is that they’ll grow up to be awesome cooks. Since they already had a good idea of what they were doing (how to use a real knife to chop, how to boil noodles, etc.) we decided that we would challenge ourselves with new recipe each weekend. About halfway through our summer of trying out new things to grill and discovering that spaghetti squash isn’t quite as delicious as spaghetti and meatballs I heard from Bayer about their program Making Science Make Sense. We worked with them on this program last summer and they asked if I had any fun ideas other parents could use to teach their kids science. Which reminded me of my Mommy + Boys Cooking Club!
Cooking is an incredible opportunity to teach, not just a life skill, but also science and math!
Ford is too little for actual kitchen duty so he goes to the grocery store with me. We talk about weight and the different measures for a liquid or a solid.
The produce section is a great opportunity to talk about how each fruit or veggie starts as a seed and what is necessary to help it grow all the way into what we’re buying. You can count things up, talk about fractions, discuss how different elements at the store are made. When you’re intentional about it, the opportunity for scientific discussion at the grocery store is endless!
For the bigger boys back at home we can talk through each step. What temperature will the water boil at? Why do some vegetables grow on stalks and others under the soil? Why would cooking your food help to eliminate germs? I honestly just throw out any questions I can think of based on what we’re cooking. What I’ve found is that the boys are excited to be doing something with their mom. It feels cool to them that we’re in the kitchen, doing grown up things and I hope the time together will help them have a life long appreciation for understanding the world around us, just like my dad taught me.
What are you doing this summer to make to get your kids interested in science? Maybe you’re planting a garden or finding ways to turn water balloon fights into experiments. Whatever the case, comment below — I’d love to hear how you’re keeping your kids involved in science this summer. And, if you need some new ways to make science fun for your kids, check out a few ideas from Bayer’s Science Library.
