My daughter is doing her Kitchen Chemistry while I get dinner prepared!
When I was a kid I loved going into the bathroom (of all places) and mixing products together like a scientist. My sister and I would use dixie cups from the bathroom and mix toothpaste, baby powder, water, baby oil, lotion—anything we could get our hands on—in those cups to make potions.
Guess what? My sister is a scientist for a pharmaceutical company today, and I love cooking in the kitchen! So what does that mean? You have probably heard this a million times but I am here to repeat it to you….playing is work for kids. Kids really need to mix, explore, and get their hands dirty every day! AND when they do, you will see magic happen. My six year old is using words like ‘dissolve’, ‘solution’, and ‘incorporate’ as she mixes random ingredients from our pantry closet.
To get them started just start saving things that you won’t need anymore. Ingredients from a recipe that didn’t work out and you will never try again. Or give them inexpensive ingredients like flour, salt, and sugar to work with. Save these ingredients in a special cabinet or drawer that they can access when they want to do kitchen mixing. (We call it mixing without tasting.) I even bought my kids special measuring cups and spoons for this activity, but you don’t have to. Just make a rule that they have to ask you for the stuff they can use (to make sure they don’t use every measuring cup you have while you are trying to bake a cake!)
This is me—cooking dinner while my daughter is doing her kitchen mixing! (She took the picture!)
Not only is this a great activity to keep them busy while you are cooking, but it is also a great way to get them thinking about science, cooking, language, and math. I give my children measuring spoons and cups and pieces of paper and pencils to write down their recipes. Anything they can practice as a child may become a career later in life. So get your children playing—-I mean working!
Clean up is part of the game!
Plus the clean up is also a part of the activity. They pretend they are real parents cleaning up the kitchen. My kids LOVE this activity and can do it for at least an hour. Definitely enough time for me to get dinner prepared and my work space cleaned up! Yay! What can you do with an hour of time?!