Children are often provided with scaled-down kitchen tools and gadgets to enhance their play, but they will be quite safe with the real thing as long as you check first for sharp edges and demonstrate how to handle objects correctly. Exploring these adult resources will make them feel grown up and encourage their investigative skills.
Collect a wide range of kitchen utensils and check to ensure that they are safe for the children to handle. Include a least one of the following:
* Colanders * Flour or sugar shakers * Funnels * Graters * Jugs * Measuring spoons and scoops * Pastry cutters * Peelers * Rolling pins * Serving spoons and ladles * Sieves * Slotted spoons * Tongs * Whisks * Less common items such as egg slicers, garlic presses, potato mashers, nut crackers, hand mincers, citrus squeezers, ice-cream scoops
Kitchen conversations
Establish an understanding of kitchen utensils with discussion and hands-on discovery.
* Spread your selection of utensils on a sheet and invite the children to sit around the edge. Take turns to pick up an item and talk about it. What is it called? How might it be used?
* Working together, sort the utensils into two groups, with and without holes.
There's a hole in my bucket
Stimulate scientific awareness by investigating utensils with holes.
* Invite the children to choose an item with holes to put into a tray of dry sand. Explore what happens when sand is poured into sieves, colanders, funnels, slotted spoons and scoops.
* Use sugar shakers to sprinkle sand.
* Observe water pouring through holes in jugs, sieves and colanders.
* Squeeze dough through a garlic press or potato masher to make 'worms'.
* Put some salt into a tray and introduce smaller utensils with holes, such as tiny sieves and funnels.
How does it work?
Encourage children to ask 'how and why' while handling utensils.
* Provide the children with hand and balloon whisks and some water. Compare swirling the water around with the balloon whisk with turning the handle of the hand whisk. Make an instant whip, discussing changes before and after whisking the ingredients.
* Show the children a hand mincer, attach it to a table with a vice and pass dough through it while they watch. Change the disc to create 'worms'
of different sizes.
* Supply the children with different tart and biscuit cutters and use them to make imitation food with salt dough. Why do shapes created by different cutters vary?
* Hard boil two eggs and cut one into slices using a knife and the other using an egg slicer. Which creates the most even slices? How does the slicer work?
Groovy gadgets
Have fun using kitchen gadgets to create your own snacks.
* Examine an ice-cream scoop closely and talk about how it works. Use a spoon to give the children some ice-cream, deliberately making the amounts visibly different. Did they all receive the same amount? Now use an ice-cream scoop to ensure equal portions.
* Boil some potatoes, cool and then use a potato masher to mash them and a grater to grate in some cheese. Invite the children to use an ice-cream scoop to give themselves equal portions.
* Demonstrate how to use a plastic citrus squeezer and encourage the children to make their own orange, lemon or grapefruit drinks.
Culinary maths
Use graduated kitchen utensils to measure ingredients or share out snacks with cutters.
* Provide the children with a series of graduated jugs and spoons to explore. Ask appropriate questions, such as 'How many small jugs of water do I need to fill this large one?'
* Cut a pizza into six equal portions using a pizza cutter and then lift them out with a cake slice. Invite the children to watch as you do this as the cutters can be sharp. Talk through your actions.
Sounds like fun
Kitchen utensils can also provide interesting sound effects to enhance sensory awareness.
* Hang metal utensils, such as spoons, sieves and nutcrackers, on strings and tie them to metal coat hangers. Suspend them outdoors, just above child height, to create tinkling sounds in the wind.
* Create exciting new sounds with utensils, for example the whirring of a whisk, the strumming of an egg slicer or the clacking of nutcrackers.