Nursery World - Essential Resources: Cooking

Children can learn a lot about sustainability by being involved in the kitchen. Nicole Weinstein looks at some suitable eco-friendly resources

Young Friends Nursery takes an eco-friendly approach

Cooking and preparing healthy food is a great way for children to try out new foods and learn basic skills such as cutting, grating, peeling, mixing and spreading, which will stand them in good stead for later life. But it also offers the chance to find out about where food comes from and learn about the concept of sustainability. When planning cooking activities and sourcing food, even the small steps a setting takes to reduce its impact on the environment will have lasting effects on the generation in its care.

‘Simple steps such as eating seasonal foods grown locally, cooking from scratch with the children and growing herbs or vegetables to use in dishes can go a long way to educating children about the environment,’ explains Edwina Revel, registered nutritionist and programme director at Early Start Group.

‘And the good news is that many regular, daily activities – such as scraping excess food from their plates into buckets that will later go onto the compost heap and be used as fertiliser to feed the plants – are key elements of sustainability that evolve naturally for the children.’

WASTE NOT…

Cooking with children offers many opportunities to bring up conversations about waste and take part in practical activities that reduce food and packaging waste.

Louise Lloyd-Evans, CEO of Young Friends Nursery in Hove, East Sussex, a strong advocate for creating sustainable nurseries, says, ‘Everything the children cook is seasonal, so they’ll bring back carrots, onions, courgettes, pumpkins, swede, broad beans and herbs from our allotment and make soups; tartlets; wraps with grated vegetables; and bubble and squeak with the leftovers. We don’t use real food in the home corners because wasting food in this way does not fit in with our ethos.’

When it comes to cooking, the nursery uses mainly wooden utensils that reinvent themselves in the home corner or mud kitchen when they have reached the end of their shelf life. It also uses silicone spatulas and muffin cases and has opted for stainless steel saucepans and frying pans, which are recyclable and durable.

The eco-friendly approach runs throughout the setting. It has banned single-use plastics and does not use tin foil, plastic bags or cling film in the kitchen. The children also have an impressive knowledge of recycling and take part in regular family beach cleans, as well as transporting their own recycling to the community drop-off in the nursery wagon.

Ms Lloyd-Evans says, ‘The children cut their own fruit and vegetables at snack time, learn to break eggs, grate cheese, fry and cook food in our portable oven and carry out a host of other techniques with practitioner support.

‘We have banned all sugary cakes and biscuits and limit the number of baked goods the groups create as we want children to be exposed to a variety of cooking techniques other than stirring flour and making cupcakes. Rather than making a token muffin to carry home to share with the family, the food they prepare is served up as one of their meals, which gives them a huge amount of satisfaction.’

ECO-FRIENDLY OPTIONS

There is a huge availability of eco-friendly kitchen utensils, made from sustainably sourced woods and biodegradable materials.

Coconut Kitchen Utensils, set of 4, £14.99, from Peace With The Wild, are ethically sourced and handmade from trees that no longer bear fruit.
Use Coconut Shell Bowls, £7.50, which are handcrafted from discarded coconuts, to weigh out your ingredients – from Peace With The Wild.
Bake bread in If You Care Compostable Loaf Pans – Pack of 4, £5.99, from Lakeland.
Cut your vegetables on Home Organics’ Premium Moso Bamboo Chopping Board – Set of 3, £15.99, from Amazon.
Mash and mix with the set of three Wooden Pestle Mortar, £25.99, from Hope Education.
Hope’s Wooden Measuring Spoons, £4.99, are ideal for precise scooping and measuring.

COOKING SKILLS

Provide a range of kitchen utensils that enable children to examine all sorts of food and to wash, cut and prepare it safely. Provide plenty of cutting boards, sharp knives, mixing bowls and wooden or plastic spoons, potato mashers and peelers, as well as a range of safe electric blenders and food processors that can be used by staff with small groups of children.

Angelica Celinska, TTS’s educationalist, says, ‘Children will certainly get discouraged from cooking if they need to wait for ten minutes until the mixing bowl reaches them. So it’s best to buy cooking resources in kits as they include several pieces of each type of equipment.

‘You don’t want to provide child versions of “real-life” equipment all the time as children need to use authentic resources to learn techniques effectively and safely. However, some cooking equipment can be very heavy, bulky and certainly designed for adult hands. So it is important to consider looking out for smaller jugs and lighter mixing bowls to allow children to handle the equipment in a more comfortable and safe way.

‘This is vital for promoting a sense of independence and encouraging persistence in a new activity. Children can quickly get discouraged if the resources are not allowing them to effectively carry out the tasks.’

Here are some solutions:

TTS’s Classroom Cooking Utensils Kit, £269.95, contains 55 pieces such as graters, bowls, measuring jugs and saucepans.
Cosy’s old-fashioned Kitchen Scales, £9.99, are great for teaching weight and capacity.
Hope’s Jumbo Timer, £10.99, has a digital display and stand or magnetic mount.
TTS’s Bright Coloured Weighing Scales, £11.99, have an easy-to-read dial in metric and imperial.
Hope’s 15 Minute Sand Timer, £9.99, provides a recognisable visual focus to help demonstrate the passage of time.
TTS’s Electronic Salter Weighing Scales 4pk, £70.95, are ideal for weighing solids and liquids.
Use Hope’s Waterproof Digital Thermometer, £13.50, for measuring the temperature of liquids and soft solids.
The pack of three Metal Whisks, £9.99, and Large Metal Ladles and Sieve Ladles, £17.99, both from Hope, are great for developing children’s hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.
TTS offers a set of six stacking Assorted Coloured Measuring Jugs, £8.49, and a Giant Multicoloured Cooking Kit, £199.95.
Poundshop Home Corner Mega Set, £55.99, from Cosy, contains 32 items for baking or role-play activities.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY

Imaginative play areas set up as shops, cafés or grocery stores give children opportunities to act out what they have experienced first hand and to discover new experiences. Not only can these activities help children to learn about food, but they encourage language and communication.

Ms Revel says, ‘Embrace each child’s cultural identity, and promote diversity, by including produce and utensils from various cultures. Be aware of and respect the variety of cultural differences in cooking and eating; for example, making tea in a saucepan, eating with fingers, holding a bowl of rice to your mouth to eat from it with chopsticks.’

Ms Celinska recommends that young children have access to giant versions of utensils in the home corner, messy play area and mud kitchen as they are still developing and using large muscle movements before they can manipulate smaller equipment in a controlled way during cooking.

Here are some suggestions:

Keeping with the eco-range, try Yellow Door’s Bio Dinner Set, £65, in your outdoor mud kitchen and role-play area.
Swish and mix messy concoctions with this Giant Metal Whisk 3pk, £14.99, or use the Mud Kitchen Accessory Set, £99.95, both from TTS.
Role play with the Asian Meal Setting, £48,99, from Hope.
Use Cosy’s Bulk Natural Tea Set, £54.95, to keep the theme of sustainability going in your home corner. Or, for a more rustic feel, go for Cosy’s Real Size Natural Tea Set, £29.99.
The perfect addition to any mud kitchen is the Fruit – Sensory Play Stones, £22, from Yellow Door.
Celebrate festivals and cultural diversity with Cosy’s Real Deal Multicultural Home Corner Set, £31.99.
Mud Kitchen Collection, £125, from Yellow Door, contains a collection of mud kitchen resources and a copy of Mud Kitchens and Beyondby Alison Norman and Janette Smith.

LITERACY

Mud Kitchen Process Stones, £25, from Yellow Door, promote the language of the kitchen and can be used to sequence activities or allocate roles.
Celebrating Festivals Book Pack, £79.74, from Hope, contains ideas for celebration cooking.
I-Spy Vegetable Poster, £10.99, from Cosy, is good for learning about healthy food.

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