Cooking Class Activities

You can spice up a cooking class with the activities you choose.

Cooking classes do not just have to be rote instructional sessions; you can add flair and zest to engage students as they learn nutritional and culinary practices. Incorporate attention-grabbing ideas into your classes to maintain student participation and enrollment. Host a theme night, provide informational instruction about other topics, and create recipe books for the group.

Themes

Create a theme for your cooking class. Themes might be seasonal, creative or even outlandish: for example, themes could include Halloween, foods that start with the letter B, or Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. Work through the foods step by step for a less experienced group. For an advanced group of cookers, challenge each student or small group to make one unique food item related to the theme, and see who comes up with the most creative idea.

Nutrition Education

Bring a nutrition chart from a popular fast food restaurant in the area. Have the students guess how many calories and how much fat are in some of their favorite items. After showing the large amounts of fat contained, teach them how to cook alternative recipes that taste just as great. For example, use ground turkey to demonstrate how to cook turkey burgers, fat-free yogurt for creamy yet healthy smoothies, and baked french fries as opposed to those soaked in a deep fryer.

Recipe Books

Encourage your students to take the recipes that they create home with them. Provide each student with a journal to write down the recipes, or simply give out a book at the end of the class with all of the recipes that you created written in them. For little ones, set aside a little bit of class time to allow the children to decorate their recipe books with hand-drawn pictures. Consider utilizing an online recipe tool as well.

Teaching Etiquette

Have a formal dinner setting one night with some fancy food prepared by the students. Use this setting to teach the proper placement of silverware on a table. You could also include some other etiquette tips such as the fact that the plates should always be passed to the right and that individuals should always maintain an upright position at the table. For younger learners, use this as an opportunity to further the importance of saying "please" and "thank you."

References

• A to Z Teaching Stuff; Cooking
• Earth Kids: Cooking with Kids
• The Teacher's Corner: Health and Nutrition Lesson Plans-Nutrition Unit
• Nourish Interactive: Teaching Kids to Cook Activities and Learning Page
• Manners Lesson Plans: For Elegant Mothers Teaching Manners to Children