Cooking with your child is a great way to help them get better at reading, and understanding how to follow simple instructions.
Equipment and ingredients:
You will need
- Plain fairy cakes or biscuits (or you could bake your own!)
- Icing sugar and food colouring OR tubes of ready-made food colouring
- Raisins, sweets or cake decorations
- A plate or chopping board
- Some small bowls or cups
- Teaspoons
- An apron, or clothes you don’t mind getting messy!
Preparation:
- Check your cupboards for icing and items you could use for decorating.
- Write a shopping list together (you could let your child write their own list - Remember the marks & squiggles they make are an important stage in learning to write!)
- Visit the shop, and look for the items you need together.
Method:
- Wash your hands and gather the ingredients and utensils (see above).
- If you’re making your own icing; put a small amount of icing sugar in a bowl, add a drop or two of food colouring and a small amount of warm water.
- Let your child do the mixing, it’s exciting to see the colours change!
- Put a cake or biscuit on a plate or chopping board (to catch any drips!).
- Then get creative! Show your child how to use the spoon or icing tubes to decorate the cake.
- Then let them add decorations on top of the icing.
- When they are finished, set the cakes/biscuits aside for the icing to dry.
- Eat and share the beautiful cakes and biscuits!
Top Tips:
- The more organised you are before you start, the easier it will be to manage the mess.
- Let your child do as much as they can themselves.
- Don’t worry about what the finished cakes look like, they will taste delicious!
- Let your child be creative, but you could challenge them to make a cup cake face, a pattern, or to see how many treats they can fit on the top!
- Decorate a cake as a gift for a friend or family member, or make some for a birthday party.
Did you know?
This quick and easy activity includes lots of learning... reading, writing, chatting, counting and following instructions! And it will help your child's fine motor development as well as introducing them to science!
