Communal Cooking With Kids

You all know we are huge fans of sharing our kitchens with our kids, making everything from granola to pizza a group experience with family and friends. But I wanted to tell you about three projects my preschooler and kindergartner have done this year in their schools, which show communal “cooking” can start as early as age 2. Each is simple, fun, and a good activity for a class, playgroup, or afterschool get-together. Kids feel especially good about food they have helped grow, make or even mix together.

–Stone Soup. Each child brings in a small bag of a particular kind of vegetable–carrots, celery, potatoes, onion, zucchini, whatever you have on hand. A parent throws it all in a pot with water or broth, maybe some noodles, and simmers while the kids play. Then it’s snack time.
–Friendship Fruit Salad. Each child brings a fruit–apple, pear, banana, orange–and the parent cuts them up (or helps them cut), and mixes it all together in a big bowl.
–Trail Mix. Everyone brings a bag of some sort of snack–raisins, pretzels, cheerios, sunflower seeds–and mixes it all together.