Cooking with a splash of speech

Speech and language practice can be incorporated into daily activities, even while cooking with your child. It is simple and easy!  You can cook simple snacks with young children, or more complicated meals with your older children.

• Name and collect all the items you need to cook, working on vocabulary or word retrieval skills.
• Reading a recipe is a fun and easy way to get your child to read!
• Practice following directions while cooking, simple to multi-step. ‘Get the bowl’, ‘Take out the milk and get an egg’, ‘Put in the butter, pour in the sugar, then stir’.
• Answer wh-questions. Where do you find the milk?, When do we take the cake out of the oven?, How much sugar do we need?, Why do we need to bake it?, Who likes cookies?.
• Practice narrative, retell all the steps needed to make the food you cooked or baked. ‘First, next, last’.
• Work on writing, making a recipe card.
• Follow a group plan when there is more than 1 chef in the kitchen. The group should work together, taking turns, to complete all the steps, from planning all the way through to clean-up.
• Sometimes mistakes happen as we cook. It is an opportunity to practice problem-solving and BIG or little problems.  Model small reactions for your child by narrating your feelings/reactions. ‘The milk spilled. no big deal! I can stay calm and clean it up.
• Is the cake pan missing? Oh well, let’s make cupcakes instead, working on flexibility.
• Cooking is a great way to target executive functions. Kids can make and follow a checklist of ingredients, work within a budget to buy ingredients, monitor as each step is completed, clean and put away items when done, and more.

Simple cooking activities are an easy way to target your child’s language skills. The possibilities are endless!