Cooking in the Curriculum @EMS: 7 Good Reasons

Cooking? Are you serious?  Yep!  Here's why:

A child putting the steps to make "The Besto Pesto"
 in sequential order. (later followed up as an
independent activity to make a mini "recipe book."

1.  Sequencing - Cooking helps children in understanding procedure and ordering events to reach desired outcomes.

2.  Leadership - Cooking is a simple/low-stress means for children to direct their peers through assigning duties (as part of the recipe) to other children and overseeing the production of the final product.

3. Followership: Cooking allows children to understand the responsibility of teamwork, of being an effective part of a group working toward a specific goal.  Also, once given a "job," a student then must follow both spoken and written direction to fulfill their assigned task.

4. Math:  calibrating required ingredients introduces units of measure (amounts and temperatures) and an understanding of proportion.

5.  Gross/Fine Motor Skills:  chopping, measuring, stirring, peeling (under careful supervision) all works on the large and small muscle groups along arm, as well as developing hand dexterity.  

Middle School Cooking Club:  often featuring guest chefs
and the exploration of culture through cuisine.

6.  Tangible Results:  completion of a recipe offers a tangible and real result for the children.  Engagement is usually there as well, as the children get to eat the tasty results.

7.  Eating Right:  learning to cook introduces children to healthier food options.  Plus, at EMS, we often cook with our own vegetables (grown on campus), and children are more likely to try new foods if they've participated in growing them.

Engineering Cars in Prekindergarten

by Beth Brennan
Director of Early Childhood Programs


Wood was cut and holes were drilled, all in preparation for a very special design project last week in our Pre-K class.  The children were challenged by their teachers to come up with designs for wooden vehicles that move.  Once the designs were in place, the students set out to sand, stack, build and glue pieces of wood together to make their cars.  Vocabulary like axles, wheels, and hub caps were incorporated in the building portion of the lesson. In projects like these, the process is as important as the end results; the children start with imagination, followed by the development of a plan, then trial and error. Once assembled, as you will see in this video, they had the opportunity to talk about their ideas and, best of all, test their vehicles.