Adventures in Cooking
Blending life skills, relationship building, and food literacy
Students excitedly enter the kitchen space and line up to wash their hands. They see a variety of ingredients on the counter and wonder what they will be making today. I start by asking students to form a circle where they introduce themselves and share their favourite fruit/vegetable.
Why Adventures in Cooking?
As a parent and educator, I have seen firsthand the importance of including children in the kitchen. It is valuable for students to know how food grows, how it is produced, and how it is made available. Food literacy is learning about and engaging with the many roles of food for ourselves, others, and our world. Focusing on food skills allows students to identify, plan, get, store, prepare and eat food.
In a busy world filled with quick and convenient meal options, the art of cooking and preparing a meal from scratch has diminished. Cooking is a valuable life skill that can provide a meaningful point of connection for families and a way to nourish our bodies. Cooking can teach patience, creativity, problem solving skills, and it can connect us to our cultural heritage.
How It Works
I partnered with the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit who graciously provided funds for me to purchase ingredients for multiple cooking sessions with elementary students at a rural Ontario school. If your local health unit does not have funds to support cooking, try reaching out to a nearby grocery store and ask for a food donation. Alternatively, there are a variety of food related grants your school can apply for.
Adventures in Cooking is a hands-on cooking program for kids aged 8-12. I provided each class with the recipe book and elicited their feedback on which recipes they were interested in making. After a class chose their favourite recipe, I went grocery shopping for the ingredients and made sure I had the necessary kitchen equipment set aside.
One junior class decided they wanted to make tacos. The class was split into three groups of 9 and I recruited an extra staff member to supervise the class while I brought each group into the kitchen. I started the session by introducing students to the local farm who provided the ground meat and asked students how to determine if an avocado is ripe and ready to eat. A ripe avocado should give when you touch it, and the skin should be dark brown. I demonstrated how to cut an avocado safely and we read and reviewed the guacamole recipe together.
Students had the choice of cooking the ground meat using induction cook tops or grating cheese, chopping tomatoes, and making guacamole. If students finished early there was a Guess the Spice game they could complete while everyone else finished up. Students learned knife safety and food safety are skills throughout the session. Students had the opportunity to use a meat thermometer to ensure the ground meat was cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
One of the highlights of the cooking session is eating together once everything has been prepared. Students are never pressured to try the food in the kitchen however I encourage all students to choose their own adventure. For example, if they don’t enjoy taco shells, students are encouraged to make a taco salad with the ingredients they do like. Often students are more adventurous with their peers and will try something new when they see their friends enjoying it. Recipes that can be customized work well because students can choose their favourite ingredients/toppings. Some examples include pizza, fresh spring rolls, pesto pasta, burritos, soup, stir-fry, omelettes, or smoothies.
No kitchen, no problem!
If your school doesn’t have a kitchen facility/space, there are a variety of activities you can facilitate in your own classroom. Try one of the simple recipes below:
Cross curricular links
Food literacy can be incorporated into a variety of different subject areas.
- Math – estimation skills, food volume, measuring ingredients, reading nutrition facts, meal budgeting.
- Language Arts – reading instructions, writing recipes, poem about food, opinion piece on food choices, develop a food advertisement.
- Social Studies – explore traditional ways to grow, hunt, fish, or prepare food, medicine wheel teachings.
- Science – food waste, turning liquid into solid, environmental sustainability, gardening, composting.
- Geography – explore different cultures around the world and their unique traditions centered around food and its preparation.
- Social Studies/History – climate change’s impacts on the food system, Indigenous food sovereignty, global trade of food stuffs, exploitation in the food system.
Impact on students
The cooking sessions at the school were extremely well received by students and each student received a copy of the recipe book to take home with them. I also received positive feedback from parents/guardians that their children were excited to talk about what they made at school and started trying new foods at home because of their exposure at school. As a facilitator I noticed an increased confidence in students’ chopping skills after only three sessions together. Students were social in the kitchen and were able to talk with their peers about their hobbies and what foods they enjoy at home.
Final Reflection
I don’t want to add more to your plate because I know it’s already full. Please think of food literacy as an add in not an add on. How might you sprinkle some food literacy exploration into what you’re already doing in your classroom?
