Today I’m sharing tips on helping your kids go beyond the basics of homeschool cooking and resources. Also, you’ll love the tips I share on my post How to Incorporate Subjects into a Fun Homeschool Cooking Unit Study.
Do you want to take your teens lessons beyond the basics but keep it simple?
Teach your kids to move beyond teaching them to whip eggs, bake a cake, and cook grilled cheese.
It’s time to move on to the next thing – preparing them for independence outside the home.
Whether it’s next year or 3 years away you can start teaching them what they need and how to be the master of their own kitchen.
Besides, you want them to exercise that independence at home first.
More Homeschool Cooking
Learn How to Set Up a Kitchen
For this lesson, have your teen do a lot of their own research using books and the internet.
Your child or teen can learn how to: set up a kitchen for:
- cooking
- baking
- and other miscellaneous supplies they’ll need.
First, look at some of these resources and a great cooking curriculum.
14 Learning How To Cook Books and Games
Add some of these books and games to your homeschool cooking unit study to learn life skills and have fun with the entire family.
Get your recommended daily allowance of facts and fun with Food Anatomy, the third book in Julia Rothman’s best-selling Anatomy series. She starts with an illustrated history of food and ends with a global tour of street eats. Along the way, Rothman serves up a hilarious primer on short-order egg lingo and a mouthwatering menu of how people around the planet serve fried potatoes — and what we dip them in. Award-winning food journalist Rachel Wharton lends her expertise to this light-hearted exploration of everything food that bursts with little-known facts and delightful drawings. Everyday diners and seasoned foodies alike are sure to eat it up.
your homeschool curriculum needs life skills and your life needs kids who help out.
Connect with your kids in the kitchen, build life skills, and put peace into your homeschool day.
Born in California in 1912, Julia Child enlisted in the Army and met her future husband, Paul, during World War II. She discovered her love of French food while stationed in Paris and enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu cooking school after her service. Child knew that Americans would love French food as much as she did, so she wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. The book was a success and the public wanted more. America fell in love with Julia Child. Her TV show, The French Chef, premiered in 1963 and brought the bubbling and lovable chef into millions of homes. Find out more about this beloved chef, author, and TV personality in Who Was Julia Child?
Break out your best aprons and spatulas: The Science Chef: 100 Fun Food Experiments and Recipes for Kids, 2nd Edition teaches children the basics of science through a variety of fun experiments, activities, and recipes. Each chapter explores a different science topic by giving you an experiment or activity you can do right in your kitchen, followed by easy-to-make recipes using ingredients from the experiment. Altogether there are over 100 experiments, activities, and recipes for you to try. From learning why an onion makes you cry to how to bake the perfect cupcake, you'll bring the fundamentals of science to life in a new, magical way.
Creativity, hard work, and lots of fun—that’s what it takes to cook like a master. Beloved television competition show MasterChef Junior fosters all of this within each of its pint-size home cooks, and what they whip up is truly impressive. This book aims to give any aspiring young chef the tools he or she needs to hone essential cooking skills, with 100 recipes inspired by dishes that the contestants served in the first five seasons, as well as timeless techniques, tips, and advice. With this book, anyone can become an excellent cook.
Bring Masterchef Into Your Kitchen: Turn Mealtime Into Game Time With This Exciting New Culinary Board Game. Teach Kids Valuable Cooking Skills Through A Series Of Fun Challenges With Delicious Results. Find Out If Your Family Has What It Takes To Become The Ultimate Masterchef
EASY TO PLAY: Players must use critical thinking to collect the ingredients for their guacamole recipes.
FAMILY FUN: This lively family card game is perfect for kids to spice up their day or for contemplative adults.
FIND THE BIGGEST FOODIE: Test your knowledge on topics ranging from culinary science to celebrity chefs, exotic cuisine to cooking and baking skills.
Your Kids: Cooking! is a fun and engaging hands-on cooking program that prepares kids for a lifetime of healthy eating by teaching them how to turn fresh, wholesome ingredients into healthy and delicious meals. Much more than a just a cookbook, YKC is a multimedia cooking program that teaches kids how to cook in a structured, fun, and engaging way.
Sometimes you just need to break it up with a fun family game, but to stay on theme let's go with the quick play card game - Check the Oven.
Another one that our family enjoys for fun that is food-themed is Throw Throw Burrito, you will end up in stitches with this one.
Teenagers like what they like, and they will only eat what they like. But instead of causing mealtime strife, now they can learn to cook those foods themselves. With over 75 delicious recipes for meals at all times of the day—breakfast, snacks, sides, dinners, and dessert, too—Teens Cook is a guide to everything teenagers (and tweens) need to learn about conquering the kitchen without accidentally setting the house on fire. Written by teens and for teens in easy-to-follow instructions, authors Megan and Jill Carle give young readers advice on how to maneuver their kitchen in a language they’ll understand (and actually listen to). The Carle sisters pass on their knowledge of how to decipher culinary vocabulary, understand kitchen chemistry (why stuff goes right and wrong when cooking), adapt recipes to certain dietary restrictions (like vegetarianism), and avoid all sorts of possible kitchen disasters.
WHERE'S MOM NOW THAT I NEED HER?: Surviving Away from Home is the ultimate guide to living away from home! It is filled with real world information and basic survival tips on topics such as:
- Cooking for BEGINNERS with Recipes for Quick, Easy Meals
- Nutrition
- Grocery Shopping
- Laundry and Clothing Care
- First Aid
- And lots more
During their last few years at home, it is a great time to put together a book of family recipes. This Happy Planner Recipe Book is a great place to preserve recipes while they work on penmanship and attention to
detail. It has a kitchen conversion list and then is broken down into 8 categories.
Next, you want your child to learn how to set up a kitchen.
Homeschool Cooking Setting Up a Starter Kitchen
I think a very important aspect of their last years of homeschooling is learning how to set up their own kitchen so let’s dig into that a little.
This is an opportunity for them to explore their tastes, while they change.
Not only research styles, but they can compare prices and figure out how much a starter kitchen will set them back.
Kitchen Prepware
- Mixing Bowls
- Cutting Board
- Measuring cups/spoons
- Basic knife set
- Vegetable peeler
- Grater
- Can opener
Cookware
- Pots and Pans including:
- 10 and an 8-quart stockpot
- 5-quart pot or a Dutch oven
- 2 and a 1-quart saucepan
- 8-10 inch skillet
- 12-14” skillet
- Casserole Dish
Have them research different materials like copper, nonstick, and glass versus stone, to decide which is best for their needs.
Bakeware
- Cookie sheets
- Baking pans with sides
- Muffin tin
- Pie plate
Utensils for a New Kitchen
- Spatulas
- Whisks
- Tongs
- Colander
- Wooden spoons
- Potato masher
Small Appliances
- Coffee Maker
- Stand Mixer
- Air Fryer
- Blender
Eating Utensils
- Utensils
- Plates
- Bowls
- Cups
Miscellaneous Items for a Starter Kitchen
- Oven mitts/pot holders
- Dish drying rack
- Dish towels
- Cleaning supplies
Small and Large Appliance Care
You will also want to teach about basic kitchen appliance use, how to care for them, clean them, and simple maintenance.
This includes items like the microwave, oven, fridge, coffee pot, mixers, and toasters/toaster ovens.
Many kids leave home without knowing how to descale a coffee pot or safely and properly clean an oven. Learning that care and maintenance extend the life of your small and large appliances is
Here are some additional skills you might want to teach this year:
- Clean an Oven
- Descale a coffee pot
- Clean and sanitize your refrigerator
- How to clean a microwave
- Caring for cookware
Budgeting, Meal Planning, and Shopping
Finally, If you have not yet introduced these three important skills this is a great time to, it is as important as learning how to stock and maintain a kitchen.
- Teach them to create a grocery list by “shopping” from the pantry first.
- Add Meal Planning for Beginners: 10 Steps for Success to what you already know to help prepare them for independence.
- How to Make a Food Budget You’ll Stick To can give your teen some good basics.
- Scroll down for two free different master grocery lists to help teach grocery shopping skills.
