Cooking Projects with Toddlers at Shining Stars
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Despite the gloomy weather outside, it was a busy hive of activity inside Shining Stars Nursery School last week. In the final days before February half term, we hosted cooking projects with our toddlers as part of our celebrations for a number of national holidays: National Pizza Day, Pancake Day, Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year. From measuring out the ingredients to tasting their creations, our little ones learnt more about the world around them, explored their creativity and developed key skills. In between the cooking, they also enjoyed making some arts and crafts. Read on to find out exactly what they got up to…
Crumpet Pizzas: A Simple Cooking Project with Toddlers
We started the week with a delicious celebration of National Pizza Day. Our toddlers rolled up their sleeves to make their very own mini pizzas, using one unexpected ingredient: crumpets. This is an easy, child-friendly alternative to making pizza dough from scratch, and, paired with tomato sauce and cheese, it turned out to be just as tasty as the traditional version!
The children had lots of fun spreading the sauce onto the crumpets, adding some cheese and sprinkling on sweetcorn as a topping. It was a great way for them to develop their independence, fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. They waited patiently as their pizzas were baked in the oven, before they got to enjoy the best part of the project - eating their yummy creations together at snack time!
Easy Banana Pancakes
The food-themed fun continued as we celebrated Pancake Day a little early by making banana pancakes. Our tiny chefs took turns measuring out the ingredients, mashing the bananas, cracking the eggs (with great concentration!), and mixing the batter. It was a fantastic way for them to develop their coordination, build their concentration and discover early mathematics skills like counting, weighing and measuring. In the end, all their hard work paid off, as they got to try the pancakes they had helped to make.
Making pancakes is one of the best cooking projects with toddlers because they’re quick to prepare, use simple ingredients you probably already have at home, and don’t require any fancy equipment. You can also pair the pancakes with lots of healthy toppings – our learners enjoyed them with some fresh fruit and veg, but plain yoghurt, nut butters and lemon juice are other tasty options to experiment with. For more ideas on kid-friendly recipes you can make with your children, visit the Good Food website.
Arts and Crafts for Valentine's Day
Love was in the air as Valentine’s Day approached and we took a short pause from our cooking projects with our toddlers. Instead, they swapped their chef hats for paint brushes as they got stuck into some Valentine’s Day-themed arts and crafts activities.
One of these was making colourful cards, personalised with their own handprints. Our little ones loved painting and sticking, as they carefully painted their hands, pressed them onto the cards, and added paper hearts around their handprints. In doing so, they got to explore their self-expression and experiment with their creativity, as well as practise their manual dexterity and early mark-making skills – both important foundations for developing their confidence in writing.
Noodles for Chinese New Year
For our final cooking project before half term, our preschoolers enjoyed eating some noodles with kid-friendly training chopsticks, as part of the nursery’s early Chinese New Year celebrations. First, the children got to practise using the chopsticks in messy play to pick up “noodles” made from wool. They loved employing their hand-eye coordination and pincer grip to pick up the material, as well as exploring its texture and feeling its weight with their hands.
Then, later on in the week, they picked up the chopsticks again – this time to eat real noodles at snack time. This activity was a big hit, which not only supported the development of their fine motor skills in a fun and memorable way, but also introduced them to a Chinese cultural dish.
The children continued their Chinese New Year celebrations by making paper zodiac animal masks, which they carefully cut out, building their scissor control and concentration. They also painted foam “rocks” for a special panda-themed display for the nursery – “Pandaland” –which we’ll continue working on after half term.
Cooking Projects with Toddlers Photo Gallery
With more festivals to look forward to - including St David’s Day on 1st March and Easter on 5th April - there’s plenty more cookery, creativity and learning opportunities to come for our little ones and we can't wait to welcome them back after half term. In the meantime, take a peek into our busy week of cooking projects in the photo gallery below. Click on the images to expand them and see our little learners in action!
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