There are oodles of cooking books for children and also picture fiction books to motivate children to be excited about cooking. Here are just a few:
TJ Tales: A Surprise for Mum is a story of misunderstandings based around homophones (words that sound the same but have a different meaning) as TJ cooks some powder puffs for his mother (includes the recipe).
Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis by African-American female chef Robbin Gourley.
Or How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman which takes the reader on a trip around the world in search of all the ingredients.
In Linda Sue Park’s picture book Bee-Bim Bop! a young Korean girl and her mom shop, chop, and prepare a meal together.
Froggy Bakes a Cake by Johnathan London in which Froggy tries his best to make a birthday cake for mother without any help.
Everyone is familiar with the Gingerbread Man story. The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett is a twist on this classic fairy tale which has a happy ending!
Loaves of Fun: A History of Bread with Activities and Recipes from Around the World by Elizabeth M. Harbison. The title says it all!!
Seven Silly Eaters by Marla Frazee would be a great book if you have a child that is a picky eater.
Read the books or watch the YouTube videos together to spark your children’s interest in cooking. Then, borrow or purchase some children’s cookbooks and help your children create their own culinary masterpieces.
The next step is to help your children create their own recipe books and in doing so practise writing!
The first recipes might be their favourite recipes they have made from the commercial cookbooks. Then they can add to their collection by asking family (aunts, uncles, grandparents) and friends for their favourite recipes.
Help your child write up the recipe in their own words, but ensure they have all the ingredients and the correct measurements for each ingredient. It is also important that the directions given are clear and progress in a logical order. The final step would be to make the recipe and take a photo of the finished product.
Purchase a scrap book and help your child divide it into different sections – meat recipes, desert recipes, cakes, etc. As each recipe is created it can be glued into the relevant section along with the photograph of their creation. My children took their recipe books with them when they left home!!!
You might like to print off multiple copies of this Recipe Template.
If you are looking for other resources to help develop your children’s writing skills check out:
Introduction to Writing Creatively