Baking with children is a fun activity and with the festive season coming up, it is a great way to get the kids doing something fun and creative – simple recipes like Christmas biscuits and gingerbread go down well, and most children will also enjoy decorating them.
As well as being a fun activity, it is also something that allows children to learn valuable skills and experiences for the future.
Firstly, it helps to build on maths skills – using measurements of weight to get the right quantities of ingredients helps with maths skills – things like fractions and units of measurement for example.
They also benefit from reading recipes, helping to enhance their reading and comprehension skills and put them into practice.
Another thing that baking helps with is creativity. There are lots of ways that children can experiment and get creative in the kitchen – from using natural flavourings like this https://foodieflavours.com/collections/natural-flavourings to using decorations and toppings on biscuits and cakes to create their own culinary works of art!
Motor skills are important for children and helping out in the kitchen also helps with these. There are lots of jobs that help to improve hand eye coordination, like pouring, mixing, kneading and rolling out dough that children find fun as well as being beneficial to their development.
Of course another big benefit of baking with children is the fact that you get to spend quality time together doing something fun – especially at Christmas when life can be hectic, this helps both the children and the adults to relax and enjoy the festive season!