Getting 5 year old to help cook in tiny kitchen?!

Gingham_Ribbon

My lad likes to help. He's good at jam tarts and pizza toppings and he makes his own butties and likes to help make biscuits and cakes etc but it's all stuff we can do at the dining table and I put things in the oven for him.

It's time now. He wants to Cook. :j And his grandma got him a great kiddies' cook book that he's desperate to try out.

Sometimes I bring a kitchen chair in and he helps stir things at the hob but it's difficult as once the chair is in there's not really room for me. This pic was taken with a wide angle lens. It's a half cupboard at each side of a small oven and that's all the space we have. Wall to wall, it's less than 6 foot by 6 foot, so the space to stand in isn't exactly roomy. The cats have never been swung!

Any ideas? How do you all do it and keep the kiddies safe?



Also, the 2 year old can't be milling around when the eldest is standing on a chair over a hot stove. What do you do with the little ones when the older one is learning to do this?!

Pink.

Hi Gingham,

When mine were smaller and couldn't see what they were stirring when they were standing on the floor I tried the chair but felt it was unsafe as they had more chance of over-balancing and pulling the hot food around them.

So I used to plonk them on the work-top next to what they were stirring and turn the handle away from them so that they couldn't accidentally knock it. Obviously I continually reminded them about the heat and what not to touch and I always held the pan handle when they were stirring. Clearly this will only work if they are completely supervised and it won't work with some things eg frying food in a frying pan as there is a much greater risk of them being splattered.

I hope your little one enjoys cooking with you and believe me, it won't be long before he's making a massive mess of your kitchen all by himself.

Pink

Gingham_Ribbon

Thanks, Pink. I didn't think of that. I'll give that a go, though I think there may not be room. The boiler is in the way on the right and on the left he'd be pressed up against the wall with no room for the handle of the pan.

robpw2

what about checking out freecycle or other second hand places for some of those plug in 2 hob things you can buy you could place it on a table and then you could both stand and do it , http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=2+ring+hob&!!!!!googhydr-21&index=garden&hvadid=2390924576&ref=pd_sl_7avpvijwhm_e

Rikki

Tie them up, gag them and sit them in the corner.

robpw2

Rikki wrote: »

Tie them up, gag them and sit them in the corner.

looks up the number for the nspcc .......:money: :money:

or is this how you get your husband to cook for you ?

Rikki

Have you got a cardboard box. Children seem to love cardboard boxes.

You could cut a slot in the side turn it upside down and get him to post his toys and then look underneath for them.
Sit him in it and pretend he's driving his toys for a day out.

He will be best entertained by something he doesn't play with very often, I used to find this worked for my youngest.

Penelope_Penguin

Rikki wrote: »

Have you got a cardboard box. Children seem to love cardboard boxes.

You could cut a slot in the side turn it upside down and get him to post his toys and then look underneath for them.
Sit him in it and pretend he's driving his toys for a day out.

He will be best entertained by something he doesn't play with very often, I used to find this worked for my youngest.

Great ideas, Rikki, but I think that Young Master Ribbon wants to cook - and at the hob

No suggestions, Gingham, apart from ask Grandma if she'll oversee it at hers (seeing as she bought the book :rotfl: )

Penny. x

Gingham_Ribbon

LOL Penny. Grandma is a FANTASTIC cook, but she's blind so I can't palm him off that easily! (I bet you've never seen my kitchen so clean! )

Love the cardboard box idea for chubs, Rikki!

Jack's_mummy

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Great ideas, Rikki, but I think that Young Master Ribbon wants to cook - and at the hob

No suggestions, Gingham, apart from ask Grandma if she'll oversee it at hers (seeing as she bought the book :rotfl: )

Penny. x

I think the cardboard box idea was for the younger one to keep busy out of they way:rotfl:

My DS wants to do the proper cooking thing too. I'm not brave enough to let him that near the hob yet:o

Gingham_Ribbon

The Ingals girls (Little House on the Prairie) did it when they were much younger than that. In the books I think she said they were about 4 but that's because the publishers didn't think people would believe that 2 year olds could do that sort of thing. But they did!