Developed in partnership with Education Services Australia

The kitchen is a great place to sharpen up your child’s literacy and numeracy skills, with the added bonus of a delicious reward at the end! 

As you and your child explore more complex recipes, you’ll find lots of opportunities to extend their vocabulary and maths skills as well as their cooking skills. To extract the most learning from your child’s time in the kitchen:

• discuss unfamiliar equipment – eg colander, sieve, pestle and mortar
• discuss unfamiliar techniques – eg marinate, season, stir fry, dice, sift, garnish
• discuss unfamiliar ingredients and foods – eg fennel, falafel, frittata
• point out ingredients that have different names or pronunciation in different English-speaking countries –eg pumpkin/squash, capsicum/bell pepper, basil, paprika
• encourage your child to document their cooking and share it with family
  
  Why don't you text a photo to grandpa and tell him what you made and how it tastes? He'll be very impressed.
• discuss measurement abbreviations – eg ml, tsp, tbsp, g. 
• use conversion tables – eg cups to grams, pounds (lbs) to grams (g), Fahrenheit (°F) to Celsius (°C). Where are imperial units used? What about metric units?
• practise ratios by working out how to change recipes to suit more or fewer people. Show how to keep the ratio the same when you increase or decrease the quantity of ingredients.