Get your kids involved while you prepare your holiday meals this season.
It’s a great opportunity to bond with your children, teach them how to cook, entertain and help them feel like a bigger part of a family celebration.
Here’s a few things to get them more involved:
Looking the part.
Entertaining is messy business! All that cooking, cleaning, and caring for guests can leave your clothes dirty. Allow your child to wear an apron to not only protect their clothing, but also they will feel like a bigger part of your event. Jacaranda living offers aprons just for kids to wear. See more on our site here.
Show them measuring basics.
What’s the difference between a cup and tablespoons. Once you teach them how to measure and even read a recipe, they can pre-measure out all your ingredients for you.
Let them use their hands.
Kids love to play with their hands. As adults, we forget the joy in that sometimes. Show you kids how to mix up a sauce, cookie dough or knead some bread dough. Here’s some more tips from Food Network’s Giada DeLaurentis on how to make cooking fun with kids here.
Preparing for dinner.
To many children, a nicely set table for dinner looks like something out of a fairy tale. Think of Cinderella’s Ball or the grand table from Beauty and the Beast. Show them how to properly set a table or fold napkins. They will feel like they made a huge contribution to making the dinner look beautiful. Plus that frees up time fore you to do some last minute preparations for guests. Here’s some inspiration on table settings from HGTV.
Clean up.
It’s never fun to do dishes or put everything away. By having some extra hands, no matter how little, this can be a big help. Kids love to be involved and feel helpful. Give them a task, like clearing the table, putting dishes in the dishwasher or bringing out containers for leftovers. Reward them for their hard work with dessert! Use this helpful checklist from Earlybird Mom here to help with clean up.