Friday 30 August 2013

Planning: Life Skills - Cooking


One of the new things that we are adding to our homeschool this year is cooking.  While Tiger has baked on-and-off since he was little, with increased consistency encouraged by our introduction to regular poetry teatime, I'd like him to get beyond baking and to learn the real skills of cooking.  Tiger is interested in his food -- both eating and cooking it, so learning how to cook a proper meal is a natural extension to meet his growing need for independence.

After some discussions about what he and I hope to achieve from this, we have come up with the following goals: (1) to be able to cook a decent meal for himself with minimal assistance, and (2) to be able to prepare a family dinner once a week.  By a "decent meal", I mean one that is:
  • delicious
  • appetising
  • nutritious
In order to achieve these goals, Tiger will not only have to learn how to use the utensils in the kitchen, but also learn how to:
    1. make a meal plan
    2. find the best source of ingredients
    3. have a good understanding of the different types of food
    4. how to combine them to make the meal appealing to the senses
    5. how the different food types affect the human body individually and in different combinations
    We will be learning from The Science of Gastronomy, different websites and books, and whatever else we will find along the way (as we inevitably do when we start studying deeply into something).

    Julie at Highhill Homeschool shared a great idea of how she incorporates writing into her son's personal cookbook.  I am going to borrow that idea and try it out with Tiger.


    This post is linked up to:
    1. iHomeschool Network Not Back to School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week 2013
    2. Collage Friday - First Week of Foundations
    3. TGIF Linky Party #92
    4. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the Crazy Week
    5. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 31, 2013}
    6. HIp Homeschool Hop - 9/3/13

    10 comments:

    1. Cooking is such an important skill for everyone to learn. I still remember the day when my twins came to me saying they'd cook the Sunday roast! I had a day off, and it was delicious!
      Here's to a year full of gastronomical delights!

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    2. My secret plan is to have Tiger take over the kitchen duties some day so that I can have more time off to do my own thing! :-)

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    3. I can't wait to see what recipes go into Tiger's cookbook.

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    4. I love the super-organised approach you take to everything! (Even though I couldn't possibly match it!) I'd love for my kids to do more cooking. Looking forward to seeing how things progress :-)

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    5. This is something I want to do this year as well.

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    6. Julie - I think we'll start with simple ones, maybe something easy for breakfast then slowly build up to a full family dinner. It'll be a while yet. :-)

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    7. Lucinda and Joyful Learner - cooking is a fun way to engage the children, and in sharing good times together (once they get past the stage of making more mess than actually cooking). It'll be good to see more children learning to cook good meals. :-)

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    8. I had bookmarked that site over the summer, but did not see this course!! My oldest daughter has gone through some culinary studies already and really love the gastrology methods of cooking. I showed her this course.

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    9. I'm trying too, to incorporate cooking, having each child take turns helping me in the kitchen twice a week. No specific goals or plans....just learning as they help. I love the idea of making a cookbook!

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      Replies
      1. I think cooking is a very useful skill to have, but the child has to want to learn it otherwise it can turn into another struggle in the homeschool that nobody needs to have! :-) Starting gradually is a good idea.

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