On May 15, 4:57*pm, Janet > wrote:
> In article <77ea0846-28c7-4216-9168-8fcd7220ab56
> @em1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, says...
>
> >http://www.slate.com/articles/life/f...ren_cooking_ho...
>
> *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.
>

One theory I read years ago which has consistently proven correct --
when the kids want to help, let them help, even if you think they're
way too young. Else you may quench their helping urge entirely. And if
you have to redo their work, don't let them see you.

Last week I was in the Trader Joe's checkout line behind the mother of
two. The little girl sitting in the cart facing me -- thus tiny -- was
reaching around and handing things to the cashier. (Trader Joe's has
no conveyor belts for the customers to empty their carts into.)