There are many great cooking class ideas for kids when it comes to electives and life skills. Also, you’ll love the tips I share on my post How to Incorporate Subjects into a Fun Homeschool Cooking Unit Study.
Cooking has many benefits beyond just learning a life/survival skill that they can take with them into adulthood.
It is a great opportunity to learn about science (chemistry).
And it allows kids to taste different cultures, explore math through fractions, improve skills needed for reading and following directions, and more.
A cooking class is the perfect extracurricular activity for elementary kids.
Too, it can be more involved and counted as an elective in middle and high school.
Here are 10 cooking class ideas for kids that they are going to gobble up.
And I wanted to make sure I provided you with a good spread of ages so that you can incorporate it into any grade and ability level.
Books for Kids Who Want to Learn To Cook
First, look at these fun books to add to your 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, look at these ideas for cooking classes for kids.
10 Cooking Class Ideas For Kids
- Learn How to Help Kids Go Beyond the Basics of Homeschool Cooking & Resources and turn any recipe into the next level of cooking life skills.
- Easy and fun, this Bread In A Bag Recipe is great for preschoolers through high school teens, and I like that it makes much less of a mess.
- Make Easy Homemade Ramen Bowls when you are studying Japan or just as part of your cooking curriculum.
- See how yummy these Cooking With Kids: Mini Peach Raspberry Pies look? They offer your child a chance to learn knife skills while chopping up fruit and other great kitchen safety.
- Check out my tips on How to Incorporate Subjects into a Fun Homeschool Cooking Unit Study. that can be paired with any recipe to learn how to take cooking from home ec into math, science, history, and geography.
- If you want to incorporate geography consider cooking around the world, like this Free Quick France Unit Study and Make Easy French Bread.
- Starting with familiar recipes and foods you know your kids enjoy is a great way to hook them on cooking healthy food with more variety, but I know there are not many kids who wouldn’t love The Easiest Homemade Pop Tarts.
- Let them try their hand at Homemade Pizza Pockets for lunch or dinner, a great cooking lesson.
- Not only are these One Bowl Muffins great for breakfasts but they will teach your child about measurements and the science of baking.
- Visit Greece or at least enjoy a taste of it and put a tasty spin on a geography lesson by backing up these Easy Spanakopita Bites.
Cooking With Kids
Also, if you’re wanting cooking curriculum, you’ll love Real Kids Cook.
Next, look at more ideas for cooking with kids.
More Cooking With Kids Tips
- Dive Into The French Revolution Recipe Project: Easy Crepes
- How to Make Unleavened Bread Ancient Mesopotamia Bread Recipe
- Ancient Mesopotamia (Hands-on History): Cook Sebetu Rolls
- 10 Pumpkin Fall Crafts and Two Yummy Pumpkin Seed Recipes
- 5 Easy and Quick Breakfasts Kids Will Eat (Grab the Egg McMuffin Recipe)
- French Revolution Unit Study – Pain Au Chocolat Easy Recipe
- How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History
Finally, look at how to make pasta with kids.
Learn How To Make Pasta
While I give you basic directions for a linguine style pasta.
You can cut them into any shape and size you like from angel hair to lasagna noodles.
You will need:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
First, pour flour and salt into a pile on a clean counter, stir well until salt is incorporated into the flour.
Create a large well in the center of the flour, making the sides high.
Place all the eggs into the center of the well.
Stir in a little flour from the walls into the eggs, repeating until all the flour has been moistened.
Now you can either knead in a stand mixer for 5 minutes or 12-15 minutes by hand until it is smooth and elastic, creating a chewy texture is what gives pasta its feel.
Make Pasta With Kids
Wrap and set aside for 1 hour.
Cut the dough ball into 4 equal pieces and keep the 3 you are not working with covered to prevent drying.
Roll them out one at a time as thin as you can get them, no more than ⅛ “ thick.
Fold in half and in half again until it is no wider than 2”
Use a sharp knife or dough scraper to cut strips about ⅛” to ½” thickness, whatever you desire.
Unroll the noodles.
If you are planning to use immediately, go ahead and boil and use as you like.
To make ahead for using another day you will need to dry them out by either laying them over a rack or hanger until completely dry.
However long you make them and long are how they will need to be stored once dry.
I find the easiest method to create little single serving nests like this and then move them to a ziploc bag after drying.
If you are freezing, they just need to dry for about 15 minutes.
This is a great life skill to teach your child and one that is easy to double or triple to make pasta for future meals.
