Many of us know how hard it is to get kids to try, let alone enjoy eating healthy foods. Parents are constantly trying to find the balance between getting their children to eat healthy foods, enjoy the foods they’re eating, and buy groceries that are affordable. If only there was some easily accessible place that you could go to to learn how to achieve all of these in your household. Aha! But there is! Cooking with Kids is a free website that can help you do all of these things in your household in a fun and creative way.
Cooking with Kids is a website that presents its curriculum in an easy to understand and enjoyable way. Cooking with Kids is managed by Cooking with Kid, Inc. and is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP , McCune Charitable Foundation, Santa Fe Community Foundation, and Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta.
Cooking with Kids is a great example of nutrition curriculum because it reaches several different audiences. First, they appeal to families. They have a whole section on their website that includes many different learning mediums that families can use to live healthier lifestyles. They have recipes, how to videos, and free tasting lessons. More importantly, in my opinion, they have resources and research that the families can easily access to broaden their knowledge of nutrition. Cooking with Kids is very active in communities which helps families get in person, hands on lessons. This nutrition curriculum is very beneficial to families who want to be healthier and learn more about how they can do so.
Cooking with Kids also has a page on their website for educators. They have different ideas available for cooking lessons, free tasting lessons, and school lunches. They give suggestions to the educators about various ways they can bring their communities together. I think this is a great idea to have an area of their website to help those who are leading their program. It helps the educators have more ideas and resources that are easily accessible to get their community excited about learning how to be healthy.
Educators can also invest in different books that contain more curriculum for them to share with their community. There’s different books that are specific to each elementary school grade and cater to their learning abilities. They also have dvds for cooking classes and fruit and vegetable tastings.
This website contains so much information that can help the overall population become healthier! Their mission is to get communities to earn enough knowledge to eat nutritious and balanced meals without sacrificing the deliciousness of food! I personally believe that communities will grow exponentially if they utilize this website and curriculum they have to offer. I believe educators have a large stake in how successful this program can be used. They are a key role in motivating families and letting them know that this information is available. Personally, I wish my parents used this website when I was younger. It looks like a lot of fun to participate in the activities they have available and is a tool to bring communities together!
Here is the website so you can explore!