​Cooking Show & Children’s Café

This recipe is based on the children’s cooking show video sponsored by the Cook County Whole Foods Co-op, Grand Marais, Minnesota, October 7, 2020. Families can view this 3-minute video at www.safeandhappy.org to preview what this project involves and produces, and to get nutritional information children will need to make their menu.

This session assumes the children are in an immunological bubble with low-risk of infection to each other. Masks, distancing, and enhanced ventilation are not needed among healthy same-family members, but should be worn and observed if children do not live in the same household.

DESCRIPTION
This is an indoor planning, nutrition, cooking, and technology project that produces a healthful and tasty breakfast banana split, as well as an illustrated and printed menu with nutrition information to share with the family—they may want to place orders from the Children’s Café!

DETAILS
With adult help, children practice sequencing and planning a process that produces a healthful breakfast served “café” style with a menu. They write a grocery list of ingredients (which adults provide), organize the ingredients for easy preparation of the banana split, make the banana split, write and decorate a menu describing its nutritional offering­—and invite family and friends to eat it with them.

BIG IDEAS
  1. Cooking is a process that requires many steps be done in correct order to produce the desired outcome—something delicious!
  2. To be successful, a process needs planning and organizing, which are important life skills.
  3. Planning and organizing are key requirements of other processes, too, such as video game design, heart surgery, or gardening.

PURPOSE
To create a delicious, nutritious breakfast based on planning, organizing, measuring, and combining foods according to a recipe process—and to celebrate the community-building act of cooking together by eating it as breakfast or a snack.

ACTIVITY
  • Help children draw a visual list or write down and sequence the ordered steps they will take to make the banana split. What comes first? The banana. Next? Yogurt. Then, fruit, then granola, then chocolate chips.
  • Help children design and make a breakfast banana split menu using the nutritional information in the video at www.safeandhappy.org.
  • Practice measuring ½ cup of yogurt and 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips.
  • Help children organize the cooking space to follow the ordered steps of the recipe, starting with bowls and cut banana, progressing to measuring cups to serve yogurt and granola, then fruit and a tablespoon measure of chocolate chips.
  • Follow the recipe to make the banana split.
  • Set the table, serve, delight in deliciousness!
  • Open the Children’s Café and repeat the process for other “customers” in your family.

WRAP-UP RECAP
Cooking is a fun activity, life skill and helpful family contribution that children can make. It is an excellent way to learn and practice the planning and organizational skills all ordered sequences and processes need to be successful. Cooking is also an excellent “taste and learn lab” for understanding nutrition, food choices, and meal planning.
AGES: Preschool-grade 4
TIME: 1 hour; highly flexible

MATERIALS NEEDED
  • Food ingredients for a Breakfast Banana Split for two: 1 banana per child cut in half lengthwise; 1 cup vanilla yogurt (half per child); 1 cup granola (half per child); assorted berries or fruits; 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips
  • 2 dishes, 2 spoons; measuring cups and spoons
  • Internet access to the WholeFoods Co-op Children’s Cooking Show at www.safeandhappy.org
  • Markers and paper to design a menu; if collaging, provide recycled magazines, scissors, and glue sticks