Cooking and kitchen skills has long been a part of children’s learning. We learn to wash our hands, how to measure, read directions, kitchen safety, and so much more. In addition, there is a real benefit to Social Emotional Wellbeing when we bring food prep into a community of learners.

All five Social Emotional Learning components are addressed while working together on food prep and sharing a meal together. Responsible decision making is an obvious fit to making healthy eating choices! We want our children to make good choices independently, so guiding, modeling, and experiencing healthy eating is an excellent place to start.

Since unhealthy choices can be linked to our emotions and impulses, self-management and self-awareness are important elements in teaching why we might need to be reflective of our choices.

Preparing and sharing food with others helps grow relationship skills, as well as presenting opportunities to experience diverse cultures. Social awareness will also grow gratitude for the food we share and how it finds its way to our plates.

Creating, talking about our emotions, and healthy eating are all a part of this pictured activity using multigrain bread or sandwich skinnies, choice of soft spread including peanut butter, hazelnut chocolate, and cream cheese, and lots of fresh organic fruit. We start with an emotional check-in and express our feelings using the food! We are able to learn about and support each other through conversation and fun.

Preparing food has long been thought of as a perfect way to practice reading directions and measuring ingredients, but now holds even more value in our students’ learning.