In article <77ea0846-28c7-4216-9168-8fcd7220ab56
@em1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, says...
>
> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/f....single.htm l
With the exception of the oven, and a lot of the stove, much of
> cooking amounts to a zone of proximal development, even for a
> preschooler.
>
> What?s surprising, or at least surprising to some of us, is how few
> people have treated it this way.

I don't know where she got that idea. Over 30 years ago when my children
were at nursery school they started learning to buy cook and serve real
food; which combined all sorts of social educational and practical skills.
They would go out to buy fish fruit or vegetables, weigh/measure and
prepare ingredients, make fish pie or soup or fruit salad, learn to set a
table, serve each other, sociable table manners, washing up. One of then
STILL makes the first cake recipe he learned there at age three (all
ingredients heated in a pan then poured in a tin and baked in oven).
Nursery taught kids (age range 3 to 5) to use knives, peelers, scissors,
hammers and nails safely.

Janet UK