Archives for February 2017

Anytime I want Noah to try a new food, I let him play with it!  If its on his plate, at the dinner table, he won’t touch it.  No way, no how.  Nope.  But, if I give him a few kitchen tools and a tray of fun new foods to explore, he’ll feel them, smell them, and yup, even taste them.  Funny how that works.  What I love about allowing children to learn through play is that it builds confidence, instills a love of learning, and in turn encourages them to explore and try new things.  This activity allows them to experience sensory play with food.  Just look at the beautiful, vibrant colors of this tray!  The colors alone are attractive to children (and I loved it too!) but then the new textures, smells, and even tastes to explore are so much fun!

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Noah LOVES to help me in the kitchen.  Probably the thing I enjoyed most about doing a Whole30 was how much time Noah and I have spent together in the kitchen.  He was so much more likely to try foods as we were cooking and if he had helped prepare them.  Turns out he likes tomatoes and raw red bell pepper!  The first time he asked me if he could have some of the salad he’d helped to make, I about fell over.  The kid’s been eating salad ever since.  As long as he prepares it.  I kid you not.  I’ve found many tools along the way that make cooking fun for him.

I mean, how cute is he?!?!

Cooking Stand

Hands down, our best kitchen addition for allowing Noah to cook is his cooking tower.  I found the plans for it online and my Dad was kind enough to build it for Noah!  He can’t slip and fall off of it and he loves having his own special place to stand when helping me cook.  Ours is a bit smaller than the one from the plans, just because we don’t have a ton of space in our kitchen to store it.  I do see that the plans now include a way to attach hinges so that it will fold flat!  Mine does not fold, but to be honest, I probably wouldn’t use that feature much anyway because Noah uses this tower all day for everything from finger painting to cooking!

Child safe knives

We have loved the Starpack child safe knives.  I originally purchased them from Amazon, who is not carrying them at the time of this post.  These however, are similar!  They don’t cut skin and Noah just loves the fact that he has a “big knife” like mommy does.  I will say, they don’t really cut hard things, but are great for fruit, tomatoes, etc.  Our food doesn’t always look pretty, but I love seeing the pride Noah has when he’s helped prepare a meal!

Small cutting board

I recently purchased this small cutting board from Target and its perfect for Noah!  He loves that its blue and I love that its got a non-skid rubber bottom, so it doesn’t slip out from under him when he’s using his knives.

Small utensils (Spatula)

I originally bought Noah a set of cute kid sized utensils, but as children do, he wanted what I was using.  He has now claimed my mini spatula from Williams Sonoma as his own.  🙂

Plastic Bowls with anti-skid bottoms (Crate and Barrel)

These colorful bowls from Crate and Barrel are my favorite for cooking with kids!  They have a rubber non-skid bottom and provide more entertainment in the kitchen than you would think a simple bowl could!  He nests them by size, we talk about small, medium, and large, and of course, we cook with them.  Who knew a simple set of bowls could be so fun?!

Measuring cups and spoons

I’m not big on purchasing separate items for kids.  I think if the child can safely use the “real” version of something, then why not?  I have two sets of the All Clad measuring cups and spoons because I love them so much, so Noah always works with the same ones that I do!

Dyson

So, while Noah does love the cordless Dyson, I love it even more.  This is the thing that keeps my overly-neat-and-tidy self from freaking out when he dumps a bowl of dry oatmeal on the floor shouting, “I scooped it, Momma!!”  (I often give him dry oatmeal, the anti-skid bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and his spatula and let him go to town).

What are your favorite kid-friendly tools for the kitchen?

Noah loves to help me cook.  He loves using a variety of cooking utensils and always wants to measure and pour.  I used to let him measure and pour dry oatmeal into muffin tins, but it makes a huge mess!  Out of that came the idea to use different shapes of dry pasta instead.  Much easier to clean up!

This bin is really simple and I’m betting you already have everything for it in your kitchen!  Here’s what I used for this bin:READ MORE