The kitchen is an incredible playground for toddlers to develop motor skills, engage in new concrete sensory experiences, interact with physics and mathematics concepts and grow their vocabulary. It is also the home of many bonding experiences between children and parents all over the world!
Cooking itself is a prime toddler activity: sensorially rich, in that it affords many experiences with new smells, tastes and textures, purposeful, since it ends in something you can eat (hopefully!) and meaningful, because it’s an essential life task that advances autonomy and concrete skills while benefitting us and those around us in a very real way!
As a Montessori guide, I know firsthand just how incredible and capable toddlers can be in the kitchen - that is, if we give them the right tools, adjust our expectations and gradually introduce them to various tasks.
My goal with this post is to offer you a mini toddler cooking guide so you feel ready and help them build the skills to start preparing their own snacks and contribute to shared meals ☺️
Skip to:
- Preparing yourself
- Preparing the environment
- The right tools for the job (with amazon links)
- Start small
- Visual recipes
- Get it here:
- Check out the full series:
Preparing yourself
Before you start, set realistic expectations. Understand that the kitchen will get messy, and tasks will take longer. Toddlers need our time and patience more than anything! Take a deep breath and embrace the process as a learning experience.
It will also help to have the tools and ingredients ready for them to use. With a very young toddler, this might mean pre-measuring everything, laying small bowls or containers with the ingredients + the tools in a tray, or setting it up on the counter for them to work. With a more experienced and skilled toddler, you may start gathering the supplies and measuring together. Try to think of your child’s attention span and ability to focus when setting up - a more easily distracted child might need a bit more preparation and organization on your part. In any case, you can see how they respond and adjust for the next time.
Preparing the environment
In order to set a toddler up for success in the kitchen, it’s important that we prepare an adequate environment, so they have access to the spaces and tools they need. Depending on your kitchen, you can either choose to get a step stool / learning tower and bring them to counter-height, or you can create a designated toddler prep-station at a lower level. You can also do both, if you have the space!
Besides a surface to work on, they’ll also need access to a source of water (which can be the kitchen tap - made accessible if needed with a faucet extender) or a pre-filled dispenser, to fill pitchers and wash hands / kitchen tools. A small trash/compost bin is also helpful to have at their level.
The right tools for the job (with amazon links)
The other crucial step in preparing the environment is to actually look at the tools and utensils at their disposal. Most adult-sized tools are not very handy for small toddler hands, and they can become sources of frustration and even danger as they are not able to use them correctly.
You don’t need to go all-out and furnish your kitchen with a tiny replica of everything you have, but there are some basics I always suggest to parents. See the list below for some suggestions, with product links:
Toddler kitchen tools
Start small
Children can really be involved in the kitchen from the very beginning. Even as babies, we can carry them while we cook and talk about the ingredients and the meal we’re preparing. As they are able to sit, we can give them a bowl with water and a scrubber to wash vegetables on the floor (expect some splashes). As they are able to stand, we can bring them to counter-height and start offering smaller tasks. See the thread below for some simple suggestions:
Visual recipes
Once these individual tasks are mastered, you can move on to more complex recipes which build on the skills they’ve learned and add the element of following a series of tasks. However, toddlers are very in-the-moment, and added to the fact that (most of them) can’t read, following a traditional recipe can be quite hard! They can’t really look to anything for reference and because of that, it’s harder to do tasks independently.
This is why I’ve created “First recipes: a visual cookbook for kids 1y+” which features 12 kid-friendly recipes with real images of every ingredient, tool and action needed and clear, easy-to-follow steps. It also includes a page for parents with quick tips on working in the kitchen together, teaching steps and handling accidents, plus a “before cooking” and “after cooking” section that you can go through together as you get ready and then clean up.
Get it here:
The book is available as a digital download and is then perfect to print + laminate so you can use it amidst the kitchen work. It would also make an amazing gift for an aspiring toddler chef, paired with some of the kitchen tools!
Check out the full series:
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