It is a classroom setting. There are about 8 children between age 14 months – 28 months, boys and girls and of different ethnic backgrounds.

On the table is a warm, ready to eat main course, cooked by one of the parents – a simple nutritious meal consistent with culture of the family that cooked the meal. The second course is a salad with two raw vegetables of different colors, some of which are picked from the school’s organic vegetable garden and prepared by the children earlier in the morning. Dessert is organic fresh fruits – two fruits of different colors picked by the parents from a local health food store. There are two pitchers one with water and one with milk.

In the cupboard next to the eating table are place mats, plates, bowls, spoons, forks and glasses for drinking. One teacher is standing next to the cupboard. The other teacher is standing next to the bathroom sink monitoring the hand washing routine.

After washing their hands the children come and pick up one of each item from the cupboard in order – placemat, plate, bowl, spoon/fork (as directed by the teacher depending on what they are eating) and lastly the glass. They carry these items one thing at a time, coming back to the cupboard for the next item and if there is already a child in front of them they wait patiently till the other child is done.

After set up, they sit at the table with their hands on their lap. Because they are taught to keep their hands on their laps when there is no food in their bowl. As soon as there are four children all set up and ready, the teacher fills their glasses with water and serves them one small portion of the main course telling them the name of the main course and from whose house the food is from.

The children eat the main course. They are served the main course till they express interest in their food. When the children are done they put their bowl to their right side and wait for the salad. Most of the time the whole table is done with the main course at the same time. There is also very little food wasted. The teacher then serves the vegetables naming each vegetable. Milk is served with the vegetables. The fruits are served in the same manner.

The teachers constantly ask questions like, “Would you like some more rice?” or “Would you like milk or water to drink?”. The children respond with a polite “Yes please” or “No thank you” and if they are done quickly they ask, “Can I have some more rice please?”.

If there are very young or new children, there is a teacher sitting directly behind them helping them scoop the rice, assisting the child to eat and settle in to the calmness. For good eaters, believe me, it is not even necessary! The children use the tools they are born with namely their fingers to scoop the food from their bowls in to their mouth.

After they are done eating, there is a whole clean up routine they are adept doing, but our main focus is how much these children love eating, so let us not go there.

This is the description of a typical lunchtime in the room I work. Any one who has witnessed the lunch routine would attest that not one word is exaggeration. The children are calm, they are secure that they will get what they want and not one extra morsel will be shoved down their throats. Even picky eaters whose parents worry that their child never eats vegetables starts eating raw vegetables within four weeks of being in the program. In fact he/she demands fresh peppers or raw carrots. It is such an awe inspiring experience to any one who witnesses the lunch routine in our room.

If you still don’t believe it, I wouldn’t blame you. Because the very first time I was in the room during the lunch routine, I refused to believe what I saw, inspite of being there and fully knowing that children that age are too egocentric to put on a show for the benefit of other people.

It was everything opposite to what I have experienced in regards to feeding my children. My experience with the children in my class only shattered my belief that it is easy to make the child an independent eater when you are serving them western food. When you are serving typical South Indian food like rice, sambar/rasam/kootu with a vegetable and curd rice to top it off, I always thought that the children needed assistance. But the kids in my room were able to handle any kind of food, no matter what they were served they were adept at eating it. The reason being the love for food.

When it comes to the feeding routine at home, I had my own theories, mostly based on the way I was bought up. Two of my personal values that influences lunch/dinner at home are making sure that my children get a well balanced meal and not wasting even one morsel of food. Couple of things I didn’t want to carry forth from the way I was bought up are running around behind the kids and feeding them (I didn’t mind feeding them, I just wanted them to sit at the table and eat) and dumping all the left-over food from my children’s plate in to my plate. If my value was not to waste food and if I was not going to eat the left-overs, guess where the food went? Yes, in to my children’s system. Because of my value #1 of providing them a well-balanced meal I did not feel guilty by shoving food in to them. This coupled with not knowing exactly how much food they need per meal and life getting busier and not having hours to finish a meal only made life worse for all of us.

I had known a change was in order for the past year, but the dinner on Aug 30th,2009 was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. I had made gongura+paruppu masiyal, rasam and paneer+red and green capsicum sautee to be served with white rice and yogurt. Chula was picking on the food like it was her punishment. She had swallowed one spoon in 45 minutes – this inspite of her having an active day with lots of fresh air and running around. So I took the plate from her, asked her to finish her grapes and go to bed. Of course I didn’t do it calmly and gracefully. I made quite a scene that she cried herself to sleep.

Thinking hard that night I found that I don’t have the energy to battle two children three times a day. I didn’t have the heart to let go either. To be truthful, I had let go out of frustration quite a few times before, but I always came back and started from where I left off. So I have to hold on without being overly passionate? Honestly I don’t know what to do, but I am hoping that this awareness brings about a significant change my attitude and reaches out to the children.

I know that it is not the food but the experience with food that matters. I also know that its is going to take time for all of us to establish trust in order to create a calm and peaceful dinner/lunch time. All I pray is for patience to get through this time. Hopefully announcing my resolve to everyone I know, I don’t know, barely acquainted and to googlebot, which seems to hit my blog more often than any living person, will keep me from going back on my promise to myself.

To healthy, happy meals and good memories.

PS: Even though I am not required to, I cook for the children in my class once a week, just a simple rice and kootu or vegetable kichdi, just to watch them enjoy the food I made. I can’t even put in to words how much satisfaction I get when all the food I cooked is gone and the little ones are still scraping their bowls asking for more. The next time I make a little extra, but it is still gone 🙂

Technorati Tags: children eating, preschooler eating, children love for food, how to improve the eating habits of you toddler, picky eaters, children eating nutritious food, cultivating good eating habits, making eating a happy experience

“…and then he was dead.”
“The knife cuts your hand your blood will pour out and you will be deaded.”
“Shoot you.”
(mimicking karate chop with her hands)“chop, chop, chop you. Cut, cut, cut you.”
“What is dead?”
“Kill kill.”

Well these are some pearls of wisdom that are dispersed by Chula and Mieja now a days. My first reaction was shock. I had never talked about the concept of death to the kids. Even while I tell them Hindu mythological stories demons always receive time outs. My MIL has never completed a mythological story, she gazes at me uncomfortably when a god/goddess is at the verge of destroying an asura and stops the story abruptly. When the children ask questions about R’s father who passed away when R was 15, the answer is either, “He is with Ganesha” or “He is floating in the universe watching what we are doing.” My aunt tells them only stories like Avayaar or Karaikaal Ammayar because these stories have no violence. The school they go to has peace education as a part of its curriculum. The school has strict policy against characters of any sort in their lunch bag/shoes/clothing/personal item. Super hero play is highly frowned upon. In spite of shielding them from violence, the girls getting this kind of language blew me apart.

The thing is, how much ever you strip their environment of realities such as death and violence, they some how get an idea that cutting, chopping, killing, death exist. They hear it used by other kids who in turn have heard some other child/older sibling use it. They are so fascinated by this new concept. They aren’t sure if people at home are aware if things like these exist. They test the waters by letting one or two words slip and judge the reaction of the adults. If the adult freaks out, they make a mental note of the reaction and they decide to investigate it by themselves behind the adult’s back or they deliberately use it again and again till they fully understand it. Chula would go with option I and Mieja would most definitely choose option II.

I remembered reading about a Reggio Emilia teacher who introduced a gun curriculum – gun/rifle/shooting for preschoolers, because she noticed increasing gunplay in her classroom. She brought an old gun/rifle to classroom that the children touched and handled, pictures of the internal mechanisms of how a gun works etc. The teacher allowed the children to explore and learn about guns in a safe and supervised environment. After a month, pretend gunplay went down. After much deliberation I decided to try something new. When I heard words like shoot or kill or dead, I asked Chula/Mieja what they meant by that. As I guessed they didn’t know much.

“Dead is dead amma”,

“Kill? To be deaded?…..I don’t know….*giggles followed by more giggles*”,

“Cut? Your hand will get chopped and it will fall off and your eyes will also fall….may be we can throw all that in the garbage can.”,

“When your hands get cut a new hand will grow, just like your hair and nails. We can keep chopping them, its okay.”

So when I hear violent talk, I respond to it in a calm tone,

“Why do you want to kill me? I will go away and will never come back. Is that something you would like?”(Yes, they do want to kill me at times, looks like it is something they like. When I say I will never come back, it seems to open endless possibilities to them 🙂 ) or

“Yes, when your sister’s hand gets cut, the blood vessels will get cut and there will be lots of blood. We have to go to the hospital immediately. Your sister will be in unbearable pain and appa and amma will be very sad. What do you think of it?” or

“That would hurt my body” or

“It hurts my feelings when you pretend that you are shooting me”

Few months back we found a dead mourning dove under our lemon tree. I took the girls and showed them the bird. I pointed out that the bird was no longer moving. I told them that it could never see its mommy/babies. The girls observed that the bird is not chirping, they also pointed out that its feathers were starting to disintegrate. Chula noticed that ants were eating the carcass and wondered if it would hurt the bird. We talked about the dead bird for a good amount of time. R took the bird and threw it in the garbage can while the girls watched. Over the next few days there were questions like,

“I see a bird in the tree there, is it the same bird we saw under our lemon tree?”,

“Can the dead bird come as a new born baby in the nest in front of our house? (There was a family of dove reproducing in a nest in our front porch)”,

“Where is the dead bird now?”,

“Okay the bird is dead. What happens then? Okay it is with Ganesha, what next? Okay, its spirit is floating in the universe, what comes next?”,

“When you are dead you go to Ganesha. So aren’t you doing a good thing by killing? You are sending people to Ganesha.”,

“How does a bird’s spirit look like? Will it look like the bird? Will my spirit look like me?”

so on and so forth.

But how much ever one tries, can death be full demystified to any one especially to preschoolers?  🙂

Technorati Tags: death, sorrow, loss, explain death to preschoolers, children talk about death, what do children understand about death

Just for the heck of it, I typed “size” in google search. People are concerned about the size of their class, keyboard, home, car, body part ( top most concern ai-yai-yai-yai-yai 🙂 ), font, tire, database and the list goes on and on. But no mention about the ‘size’ I have on my mind.

When I was pregnant with Chula and Mieja, this is something I obsessed about every single day. My first two pregnancies came to an abrupt end in the first check up at nine weeks and at both times the doctor said, even before confirming a heart beat, ‘It is small. The sac is small and so is the fetus.’ So something in me started associating big baby = healthy baby.

At birth Chula was 6 pounds 11 ounces, 19.5 inches. A normal weight considering how petite R and I are. Owing to her serious spit up episodes and me believing Enfamil’s unrealistic suggestions, Chula was force fed and she was big. When Chula was six months, another desi mother whom I was seeing for the very first time at the park, blatantly asked me, “What do you feed her. She is huge”. This was her opening conversation, no niceties such as hi, hello, which apartment do you live! Oh….how I cursed that woman 🙂 I seriously considered getting the dirt that she stepped on and do some old fashioned hocus-pocus to remove her evil eye on my child. At Chula’s 12 month well baby check up, the doctor said, “If she continues growing like she is right now, she will be 6 feet by the time she is 15,” he paused, looked at R and I and said, “but that may not happen. She most probably has your genes. She will slow down.”  And she did at two years!

Mieja gave us a scare. At the first check up at 6 weeks, the doctor couldn’t see a sac, he thought it might be another ectopic. Two days later we saw a small sac, two days after that we saw a tiny fetus and four days later we saw a heart beat. During the 18th week ultrasound, I could sense the doctor wondering about Mieja’s size. When I pressed him, he said, “She is a good two weeks smaller than her 18 week size. Other than that she is perfect. Why don’t we schedule another ultra sound for 30 weeks and see how she has grown?” And at 30 weeks, she was still two weeks behind. I was busy running around with Chula who was only a year old, I had only put on 12 pounds in 30 weeks, can you believe that?! On top of this Mieja came 15 days early. I was thankful that she was 5 pounds 11 ounces and 18 inches at birth. Whew, that was a relief….I was sure that I would pop a lizard.

With all this history every well baby check up, I would anxiously look forward for the height and weight check up and consider the markings on their height/weight chart as an yard stick to my parenting skills. Even now, I obsess about size, but not in the manner I used to. I see size affecting caregivers in a different aspect.

At home, Chula being and looking like a normal 4.5-year-old looks much bigger than Mieja who is three years and four months, but can easily pass for two. When the sisters stand together there is a good 12 inches of height difference. That coupled with the last child always being a baby in the parent’s eyes, Mieja gets babied a LOT. The same thing continues in school too. Mieja started school when she was two years and four months. When she started, she was the youngest AND the smallest in her class. Currently there are other children a good eight months younger than Mieja, but she is still the bottom 5 percent of her class size-wise. The little devil knows her potential and takes full advantage of that. She would open her eyes wide, shake her arms up and down and say, “But….but, I don’t know how to do it. Can you do it for me?” and the unsuspecting victim would end up doing every thing for her.

Okay, I am digressing, my point is, yes there is one, children come in different sizes and shapes owing to their genetic pools. I have to constantly disregard their size, bring the age of a child in to focus before I ask the child to do anything. School can be tough on children who look a lot bigger than their size. Adults around them, including their parents can at times place age inappropriate expectations on the child. So the mantra now is, “Don’t believe what you see. How old is this child? Not yet two, though he/she looks like 3.5. So asking this child to wear this pair of shoes with this kind of loop straps…. forget it. Okay, that one is two though he/she looks 14 months. So may be its time this child can get dressed independently.” And so the obsession about size continues, only now that I am forcing myself not to rely only on what I see 🙂

Technorati Tags: caregivers of young children, age appropriate expectations, developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood

You mention one word to ‘The Very Particular Girl’ and she constructs such vivid mental images that if put in words would fill a book.

The mother says ‘ice cream’ and ‘The Very Particular Girl’ imagines one scoop chocolate ice cream with sprinkles and M&Ms with a cherry on top, in a kids sized waffle cone. This to be had in the Cold Stone Creamery close to her house, sitting at the square table against the wall with three chairs around the table. She visualizes that her mother would be sitting next to her with a white plastic spoon on her hand. She visualizes that she is allowing her mother to swipe her ice cream from time to time and swatting her hands away at other times. She visualizes her younger sister sitting across from her eating vanilla ice cream with sprinkles and M&Ms in a kid sized sugar cone. She had already visualized what clothes the trio would be wearing.

If the mother had said ‘ice cream’ during an outing in which the little sister had not accompanied them…. no problem, she automatically assumes that they would go home, pick up the little one, change clothes and then go to the ice cream shop.

See the way the four-year-old mind works? She constructs an image, actually a movie clip, by gathering snippets from her past experiences. If the reality changes, the movie projection in her mind does not change. Her four-year-old brain is not that agile cognitively, so she changes reality in order to achieve her mental representation.

Of course reality being pretty real, there usually is a mismatch in the end result and the mental projection. Thus resulting in hands-flailing-legs-kicking-rolling-on-the-floor-tantrums. At times the mother has been afraid of ‘The Very Particular Girl’. There is no telling what ‘The Very Particular Girl’ is thinking and after the hoops the mother had jumped to do something that she thought would make ‘The Very Particular Girl’ happy, she had to face-ear-splitting-brain-melting-tantrums. Most disheartening of all, ‘The Very Particular Girl’ would come back home and pronounce the verdict that would descend on the mother like thunder “You made me very unhappy amma.”

After going through painfully small improvisations, one at a time, finally the mother and the ‘The Very Particular Girl’ have settled in to a routine. For anything activity they do, no matter how small it is, they draw up ‘A Plan’. A plan is nothing but a set of expectations, both the mother’s and ‘The Very Particular Girl’s’. Then they analyze what they can do if something unexpected happens and the plan goes haywire. The mother tells/warns at least 1000 times that one can only plan and life can throw surprises. The ‘The Very Particular Girl’ nods her head understandingly. Thanks to the plan, if something upsets ‘The Very Particular Girl’, she says, “But amma, that is not my plan.” The concept of ‘A Plan’ helps put things in perspective not only for the ‘The Very Particular Girl’, but at times also for her mother, because when you are a mother, you tend to just do things. In your heart, you are doing whatever you are doing in the best interest of your family. At times like that the little voice, filled with reproach helps the mother find her balance.

THE END

CAST AND CREDITS(Like you guys didn’t know all along!)
‘The Very Particular Girl’ – Chula
Mother – Yours Truly

Technorati Tags: Toddler tantrum, preschooler tantrums, how a child thinks, why do children throw tantrums

Photo courtesy http://theabfc.wordpress.com/

Author/Illustrator: Kathryn Otoshi
Recommended Age group: 2 and up.

When I pick a book from the library, I pick up the book for its social/ethical values or for its pictures or for the educational values. Books like Flotsam inspires me to think out of the box. Books like The Relatives Came talks about the same issues we go through at home from time to time. In a nutshell, when I thumb through a book, I inadvertently shelve it in to a category in my mind. It forms the angle I adapt when I read the book at home with Chula and Mieja. Once in a while a book like One comes along and it just blows my mind.

Well, it talks about numbers and colors. So is it a toddler book to introduce colors and numbers? No. One is definitely more than that.

It has simple sentences and is easy to read. When they talk about the color red the author writes Red, making it easy for a preschooler to connect color to the name of the color in print. So is it an easy reader book? May be and some more.

When the author says, “Red got bigger and bigger and bigger”, she illustrates it with three red dots in increasing sizes. Is it a book that helps children comprehend comparison? This is got to be a early math skills book. Yes, definitely…..and much more.

It talks about feelings. So is it a book on values. Yes, that too.

One is the story of seven colors. Blue, Yellow, Purple, Orange, Red, Green and the number One. Blue is an average Joe. He has his days, taking pleasure in simple things, at timesfeeling insecure hoping that he could be like some one else. He is weird with in acceptable limits. Then comes Red. He senses Blue’s insecurity and teases him. No one stops Red. Blue feels blue. Red’s ego bloats. Now comes One as in number one. So far the colors are illustrated as a blob of watercolor. One is gray, he has sharp corners and angles and nothing like the other colors have every seen. One is unique not only in appearance but also in his nature. He stands up to Red and refuses to be bullied. He looks at other colors and says, “If someone is mean and picks on me, I for One stand up and Say No.” Other colors join One in his stand against Red, even the meek Blue. Now Red turns even redder from the embarrassment and rolls away. Blue and One call out to Red saying that Red can be a part of the group if he is ready to respect the rest of the group. “Red can be hot AND Blue can be cool” they say, because they want “Every body to count.” Red laughs and joins the fun.

The illustrations capture one’s eye. Simple enough to smack our head and think, “Dang, I could do it”.

I fell head over heels in love with this book. I bought two copies of this book and donated one to Chula and Mieja’s classroom. This book is so far the number One in my list of recommendations. I have even read it to couple of adults who visited us. I am just smitten with this book.

Technorati Tags: preschool books, books for preschoolers, books against bullying, E.B. White Read Aloud Award

…I would be Ron. Wanting to be something, but having no clue as to what the what is, waiting for something to happen instead of making it happen, dreaming of becoming famous without putting in the required hard work, always behind some one stronger, procrastinating under the pretext of waiting for inspiration, can catch a ball only by luck, buckling under pressure, rarely achieving and reliving the few rare achievements to eternity, putting action before thought.

If want to be like someone in Harry Potter, I would like to be Luna Lovegood. For her unfailing optimism, ability to find the truth no matter how jaded it is, telling the right thing to the right person at the right time (well…. except for the curmple-horned-snorkack bit), loving her dear ones, being totally secure about who she is.

Now, if you are going to think “What in the world is going on with her?”, I am just being my worst critic. Not feeling disillusioned or dispirited. Other than serious Harry Potter withdrawal symptoms, mental health well with in desired spectrum folks 🙂

If you feel up to it, indulge me folks.
Take it up as a tag.
Include the HP logo in your post.
Write about whom you currently identify with in Harry Potter.
Write about who you would like to be.

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Harry Potter characters

Cross posted here.

For previous posts in the cooking with kids mini-series:

KOOTANCHORU
THE SCIENCE BEHIND COOKING

Here are some pointers on how to cook with kids.

• When you invite your children in to the kitchen your main motive is must be inclusion and having fun. Learning will automatically flow from the conducive environment you are creating. If you start with, “I am going to TEACH this child geometry through toast making”, you will end up frustrated. Not to mention burnt toast.

• Pick simple recipes. This way you don’t have to put off cooking with your child till the child is a certain age. Some simple suggestions are spreading butter/cream cheese on bread, tearing lettuce, scooping melon, shredding cheese. Remember the idea is having fun, not creating a culinary wonder.

• Break down complicated recipes in to simple steps and involve kids in things like washing and cutting the veggies. Especially the vegetables like cauliflower, mushroom, beans, cucumber etc are easy to cut. I save the sturdy take out knives for this purpose. Safe on little fingers, sharp enough to slice through the vegetables.

• Slowly build up from the basics. For example show them how to spread jelly/cream cheese on toast. Follow it up letting them do the spreading on their own. Then introduce a picture recipe like this. Later discuss the process with your kids.

• If there are siblings and you are working together on a recipe, assign each child a specific role like mixer, washer etc. Trust me, cuts down on lots of squabbles.

• What you make in the kitchen with the kids does not always have to be an edible recipe. You can try play dough recipes or bubble recipes.

• Encouraging children to invent their recipes can be a good thing. I allow a highly restricted version of this. For me the first priority is not to waste food. So I let them combine and test only a limited set of ingredients, which I know for sure will produce and edible concoction.

• Last but not the least, follow safety measures and hygiene.

Some cook books I enjoyed

If you are thinking of a gift to children in the 3-6 age group, these books are excellent.

• Pretend Soup And Other Real Recipes By Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson
• Cool Kids Cook by Donna Hay

If you are fretting that your child does not eat vegetables, Jessica has some recipes to ‘sneak’ veggies in to your child’s diet.

• Deceptively Delicious By Jessica Seinfeld

If you are thirsting for more information on the science behind cooking, look no further.

• The Cooking Book By Laura Colker

Technorati Tags: preschool kids, cooking with kids, pointers on cooking with kids, how to cook with kids, resources for cooking with kids, child development, cook to learn, science behind cooking

All the pictures from this post are from google images.

There I was sitting with my research for the sequel for KOOTANCHORU and realized that Dipali, Art, PG and Sue have already listed the major concepts in the comments section.

Dipali says,

“Great for mathematical concepts like weight, volume, division etc. Starting from purchasing of ingredients- costs of different things. Scientific concepts:The change that heat brings about to raw ingredients. How different ways of cooking can give a different end product with the same ingredient. Textures, odours, sizes, shapes- there’s a whole world of things to be learned and taught:)
Haven’t even scratched the surface yet!”

Artnavy takes it a step further and expands into the concept that food and culture go hand in hand. She says,

“u can teach about flavours- festivals- what the Gods like
temperature- ice- water – steam- pressure etc
weight colour texture shapes
vitmains- calories etc
of course satisfaction/ harmony./ organising skills/ leanring from mistakes and the whole team thingie are all a huge part of it”

PG’s point resonates with me when she says,

“In today’s times it is so important to realise the importance of healthy eating which is only possible through learning cooking. To learn about the basics of a balanced diet. And learning to develop taste for good food, I think, is very important for a healthy lifestyle too.”

Sue is looking in to the present as well as the past when she says,

“Great for teaching kids about household safety — how to handle fire, knives. Also great for hygiene. Also, the basic cleaning up most cooks do is great practice for when the kids have homes of their own.
They also learn how to store foodstuffs, grow herbs, mix and match tastes and smells. If you let them wash their own aprons and washcloths, the older ones learn basic hand laundering and stain removal skills. They may sound unimportant but they make such a big difference to one’s adult life!
Oh and if they cook in an assembly line — say for sandwiches or salads or whatever — it’s a good lesson in every role being an important one, no matter how small it seems.”

The learning that occurs in young children can be classified in to three main categories – social, physical and logico-mathematical. Cooking is a scientific process that effectively covers all the three categories.

For example take the process of making a basic scrambled egg recipe with your child. The steps would be as follows:

• Take x number of eggs.
• Break in to a bowl.
• Add a dash of salt and a dash of pepper. For the heck of it add a drop of food coloring. Even adults love green/orange eggs right?!
• Beat well with a fork.
• Heat a tava.
• Add oil.
• Add eggs.
• Cook and enjoy.

Every family has its own style. Some might add raw onions, fried onions, a bit of salsa, veggies, cheese..etc. Every family personalizes the basic recipe in to something that characterizes their style. Heck, some families eat eggs only on certain days based on religious restrictions. We are now talking about the social knowledge that is closely associated with food. We convey our macro culture as well as micro culture through food.

Physical knowledge is not just spatial awareness that can be learned through jumping and running. But it is the learning that comes with doing things physically. By touching, tasting, smelling. If the outcome is directly related to the action and can be varied by varying the initial action, the learning is rich. What better field to test and experiment that cooking? Very true in my kitchen. To hubby’s utter displeasure, I change my recipes every time. When I say rasam, he is not sure what he is getting till he tastes it. For more sad stories contact R@don’t_screw_up_my_fav_food_#$%&*!.com

Logico-mathematical refers to the math and science concepts that can be learned through cooking.

When you interpret a recipe for a child like this, imagine the symbolic association the child forms! She learns that picture=word=thought=print=language.

One learns to count, not just on paper, but in the real sense, “One means one of an object, two means two of the same object”

One learns to compare. Half cup is more than a quarter cup, but less than one cup. Plus they get a meaning full introduction in to part-whole relationship A.K.A fractions.

Through their senses they learn what it really means by solids and liquids.

Older kids learn to estimate. If I need one person needs two eggs, how many eggs do two people need? This forms basis for set theory, ratio, proportion, one-to-one-correspondence, multiplication and addition.

Cooking needs to flow in a certain order. So children learn about sequence and concept of time.

They observe transformation. When we warm butter it melts and later solidifies back to butter. When we heat butter, the fat separates and forms clarified butter. Now it will not revert back to butter. When we heat eggs, it curdles.

They learn how things work. Just look at the different kitchen tools in this picture. Isn’t it amazing that every utensil has a specific work. Now, we can’t flip an omelet using a soup ladle can’t we!

And you know what, this is just the tip of ice berg!

Next post: resources and practical how to’s.

On a totally unrelated note, how many of you think about Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina when you break eggs? “It’s all in the wrist”. Thousands of eggs in the past 15 years and I think about this every single time. See cooking brings back memories. May be trivial but will most certainly fill you with happiness 🙂

Technorati Tags: early child education. child development, kootanchoru, cooking for kids, cooking to learn, preschool curriculum, kids

Say….. if a certain person in the blog-o-sphere goes A.W.O.L, then decides to show her face back again, how does this certain person make a come back?

(a) Give an elaborate explanation starting with why she disappeared and what has happened in the past one year. This, of course, is based on the self-centered assumption that the universe revolves around her and people would want to know.

(b) Just start posting as if nothing happened. The presumption is that the blog world is like a pond and ripples come and go. That is the way of life.

(c) May be she must strictly adhere to reading blogs since there is no accountability. Make a slow entrance.

(d) Can she really do this? Once fall term starts, will she be able to parent/work/study and also have time to reflect on it? Oh forget it. Just live life. Why even bother recording it? Do not read any blogs. Ignorance is bliss.

💡

How many of you people have heard this term before? It is very prevalent in kids growing up in rural Tamil Nadu. In an attempt to make their dramatic play realistic, kids bring in real ingredients and cook a meal. One child brings in rice, another brings in daal, another the veggies. They mix all this in a pot, add a little water and put it on top of a small fire made from wooden sticks(suLLi) and cook it. The resultant mixture is called kootanchoru. The name symbolizes the team work that went in to the dish. It can be roughly translated to ‘community lunch’ in English, but is one of those Tamil words, no matter how well one tries, cannot translate in to another language and capture the complete meaning of the word.

Having spent what can be called my childhood, in a concrete jungle, I never made kootanchoru. My first and only kootanchoru was when I was knocking at the door of adolescence. I was 13 and we had moved to what was then the suburbs of Chennai(Now this suburb is swallowed by the ever-expanding Chennai and is one of the prime centers of the city!) A good 18 years, later, I still vividly remember the details. A lazy Saturday afternoon, three teens, making a small fire under a mango tree in the backyard and cooking rice in a small ever silver utensil. At the end of the process, the utensil was so black from the soot and I still remember the said friend’s mother rolling her eyes. We found the smoky flavor of the rice unbearable and didn’t eat even a morsel of it, but I still remember the experience.

Some thing about the different textures, the independence, the creativity involved, problem solving, team effort and most importantly the stimulus to the sense of smell involved is unique to the process if cooking. Hmmm, sense of smell, tell me about it. The part of the brain that is responsible for sense of smell is also in charge of memory and feelings. That explains why I end up smelling tea/idlis steaming/yummy tomato chutney when I think of my grandma’s house!

Anyhooo, all this memories about kootanchoru came flooding back when I had to do a presentation on cooking experiences for children. The main difference being, the general norm in India was ‘LEARNING TO COOK’ and now experts in the field view it as ‘COOKING TO LEARN’.

Any one has ears for more details on how cooking can be a learning experience and what are the concepts that can be taught by cooking, give a holler. *Pointing fingers at people who think that this is a cheap ploy to get more comments*, ‘Yes, I am an extrinsically motivated person. Now stop that train of thought and hit the comment section.’

early child education, child development, kootanchoru, Cooking for kids, Cooking to learn, pre school curriculum, kids