There's no doubting that most kids LOVE to have some creative fun in the kitchen or engage in imaginative play with pretend play meals, even if it does take some preparation and cleanup afterwards.
We've compiled the top 10 reasons why pretend play of this kind is so crucial to a child's development.
1. Improving social abilities
Young cooks who are involved in creative pretend cooking
papa's games are more likely to talk about what they are doing in the play kitchen, watch what other playmates choose to "cook," and share the supplies or tools they are using.
2. Boosting reading and vocabulary abilities
Cooking games offer many opportunity to practice fundamental reading abilities, whether it's reading the ingredients list or the recipe. By using each new ingredient for a particular purpose, they can expand their vocabulary and solidify this information
3. Honing your numerical abilities
The processes of weighing out ingredients, counting eggs, and measuring sugar all contribute to a child's mathematical understanding. Once the cookies, pizza, or cupcakes are taken out of the oven, simple addition, subtraction, and even division can be practiced.
4. Acquiring time-telling skills
When you cook with kids, you provide them a fantastic opportunity to practice telling the time. Whether it's at the most fundamental level of figuring out when the food went into the oven or figuring out how long it needs to cook for and, consequently, when they should check to see whether it's done!
5. Playing with your senses to learn
Activities like kneading, mixing, tasting, smelling, and seeing bread rise offer fresh experiences through sensory actions. They can maximize their learning capacity by using all of their senses
6. Boosting imagination
The approach enables them to experiment with ingredients and flavors and merely have some control over the finished product, even though we might not agree with the components they blend into a salad, add as a pizza topping, or stick on top of a cupcake. The use of imaginary ingredients in role play cooking is very helpful for letting very young chefs experiment freely without making a mess!
7. Entice a picky diner
If a normally picky eater prepares or places the food on their own plate, they may be more inclined to try a novel dish or ingredient. This is obviously undesirable if the food they've created is comprised of plasticine or salt dough!
