Seven children’s food activities for the summer
Summer is a great time to enjoy cooking and other food-related activities with your kids.
Looking for things to do during the school holidays? We think that food-related activities of all sorts are great to keep the kids entertained, and we don't mean eating their body weight in chocolate.
Here are some ideas.
Cook with your kids
Pretty obvious but get the children to help you out in the kitchen at home. Keep it simple and make sure they’re being safe but having fun. They (and you) will be super-pleased with the results, too!
10 recipes that are fantastic to make with kids
Visit a farm
Visiting a farm is a lovely way to get your children into the outdoors and meeting animals. Get up close and personal at farm activity centres, where they might be able to milk the goats, ride horses, or feed the pigs. These centres are good for teaching children about where food like eggs and milk come from.
There are a fair few farms suitable for this kind of visit, such as Hall Hill Farm in County Durham, Bocketts Farm in Surrey, Odds Farm Park in Buckinghamshire and Pennywell Farm in Devon. Urban farms are also a good visit, and are often free, but will welcome any donation you can make.
Teach them the stories behind their food
Kids will be interested to learn where their food comes from, and the younger they are when they learn, the more aware they’ll be as they grow up.
Take a walk into the countryside, making sure to pass through fields of wheat and rapeseed, where you can explain a little about how these plants are turned into bread, cereals, and oil. You might also take the opportunity to forage for strawberries, or point out the unripened blackberries on the bushes around this time of year. Make a note of where you find them and come back to collect them later in the year.
Gardening
One of the best ways to get kids interested in food and give them a basic understanding of the environment is to help them grow some food of their own.
It’s a little late in the year to get down to serious sowing, but there’s still time to squeeze in a quick crop of radishes, and you can continue to sow salad seeds outside for harvest in September. If you don’t have garden space, wet some cotton seeds or thick paper towels and grow cress.
Whatever you decide to grow, your kids will love seeing their plants reach the dinner table.
Easy vegetables and herbs for children to grow
Food events
Keep an eye out for local farmers' shows and food events where you can pick up some tasty morsels and introduce your children to interesting flavours. Get them excited about the range of beautiful and delicious food on offer, and perhaps take some home and cook an unusual tea with them.
Summer 2015 food and drink festivals and events
Cookery courses
Have you considered signing your child up for a cookery class? They’ll learn the basics, make friends, and become familiar with some simple recipes.
Having said that, holiday cookery classes are a rather expensive option on the whole. If you’re on a low income, there are some schools, such as The Kids’ Cookery School in London, which offer an assisted rate to help you afford the classes.
Food ‘science’
Everyone knows that one of the best things about being a child is making a mess and getting away with it.
Let them in on some secret science using simple kitchen ingredients. Make a bicarbonate soda volcano with a mound of soda and a splash of vinegar, or teach them the delights of mixing coke and mentos (diet coke is best) to cause a ‘geyser’ effect.
Just make sure you do these messy ‘experiments’ outside or in an area of your home that is very easy to clean.
Got any other great ideas to keep the kids busy in the kitchen? Share them in the Comments below.
You might also like:
Comments
Be the first to comment
Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature