Sometimes I feel the older one got her TV channels mixed up. She watches Food Network with such rapt attention that you would think that the 4 year old is watching Angelina Ballerina. Giada is her favorite- really, not Diego, not Angelina, not Strawberry Shortcake but Giada and it shows while she plays kitchen. It’s not “Mom I made a cake for you” rather “Mom, It’s a ooey gooey chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting ” !

All kids learn in a different way – tactile, visual, auditory, kin esthetic, nature. With my girl – its all about cooking- She loves to be in the kitchen and she is very hands-on. She loves when things get messy and loves to craft food. With that in mind, I thought I’ll chronicle all the fun learning and cooking we do in my kitchen. Cooking with kids is such a delightful way to learn while playing. I’ll show you how “Simple pancake making” turned into an hour of fun+learning.

On her way back from preschool , she had a request waiting ….

Big S : Mommy, Can we make pancakes for lunch today ?

And even before I could respond I want pink, purple and green pancake.

And I’m thinking, pancakes for Lunch ?  I stopped myself from arguing because the “world’s most pickiest eater (in my opinion) is actually wanting to eat something “. I decided to give into this whimsy and make some colorful pancakes. She wanted to play “CHEF” and she lead the way.

Big S : Hurry mom, My tummy is screaming for food ! ( you know the excitement they get when they know that they won this time … She was so full of that kind of excitement )

Big S: Mommy, I need 3 bowls. 1 for green. 1 for pink and 1 for purple .

We started of making pancakes but we managed to put some arithmetic into the mix 🙂

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• Pancake mix
• Betty crocker neon gel food colors(optional)
• 3 bowls

So, she mixed them up, split the batter between 3 bowls, added the colors and it was ready for the griddle.

I use the neon gel colors from Betty Crocker. If you are not into colors, skip them. These come in tubes and is easy for little hands to squeeze and avoid a big splash. It has happened to us in the past –  I say 3 drops and splishhh – half the bottle is in my mix. Well, the squeeze tubes are a comfort there.

Big S : Can you check if that pan (griddle) is hot ? Is it hot yet ? Ready ?

It finally was at 350 degrees F and we made 3 big pancakes . She wanted to flip them, with adult supervision of course-  and we were ready to serve.

She wanted to do the “plating” . She was so interested in doing the presentation, may be she has a future in “Food Art” , may be ? She stacked them up and cut them in the middle and poured the syrup and served herself a purple and pink slice. The baby was served a piece of the pink too.

Big S : You can eat whichever one you want mom. I am the pinky pie and the purplelicious princess you know, so I can eat them ! Lil’ S can eat the pink, she too can be a pinky pie !

It was so adorable. She just was in a cooking mood and wanted to be the chef and have fun with it and I think it was the right project for her. It was something she could do and there was hardly any mess – which is always a good thing for me 🙂

Big S:  Mmmmm they taste pretty good mom. Look, the baby likes it too . May be we should do this everyday.

We try to make “Anytime into learning time” and cooking is an awesome learning platform in our household.

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It was all about words –

• Ingredients’- it’s what we need to make Pancakes – Eggs, and flour
• Measure – How much of the ingredients do we need? Measure the flour, number of eggs.
• Temperature – How hot does the griddle need to be – Hot and Cold .
• Flipping and stacking – It’s an important mathematical concept – and what better way to introduce the terms and show her what it means.
• “an” – words – Pan, Man, Ran

Number Skills –

• We measured the ingredients.
• Worked on our counting skills.
• Developed our gross motor while mixing the ingredients.

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With all that fun you would think she would devour the food, BUT NOPE. We love to cook but definitely not eat.