Happy Mother’s Day. Yeah, I know I’m late. But that’s OK because I appreciate what you do as moms every day, not just yesterday. Did your kids make you breakfast in bed? (Mine didn’t and I haven’t ever really wanted that.) But COULD THEY? If not breakfast in bed, could they set the table, clear it, clean up? Could they make the salad or the rice?
If not, I have a Mother’s Day gift for you. Take it today or come back later, whenever you’re ready.
We’ve all probably seen those charts of what chores kids can help with at different ages. I liked to review them now and then just to see if my current patterns could be improved or if I was stuck in my ways I could get more creative or shake things up a bit.
If you feel like your older kids don’t do much in the kitchen, check out this list. It may show you how much they actually do. Or it may give you a few ideas of how to involve your kids more. Even having your teenagers in the kitchen more with you, helping with the simplest tasks helps them. It exposes them to what’s involved with creating a meal from scratch when so many kids today don’t have a realistic idea of this.
Now here’s your gift. Katie’s got a great printable list of Kitchen Skills Ages and Stages, taking you from 18 months to 18 YEARS. It’s awesome because each age range is accompanied by life skills these tasks are building. And these are, indeed, skills I want for my kids and that you’ll want for yours, from following directions to budgeting! It also includes tasks you actually want help with. Win-Win, I tell ya! Go get it here. And thank you, Katie, for doing all of this for us.
If you feel like your kids are pretty savvy in the kitchen already, here’s a great list of 20 recipes kids can make with their basic kitchen skills. These are whole foods based and real food. Meaning not just ants on a log (which are great for their purpose), but cooked items that help create a meal. For instance potato soup or refried beans.
Finally, if you’d like help teaching your kids to cook, check out Katie’s Kids Cook Real Food course. It’s a self-paced series so you can take as long as you need. You can purchase just one level or ALL of them, so it can be customized for a particular kid or be ready for your entire family, wherever your kids are now and will be in the future. There’s so much available to you in this course, I’m not going to outline it all. I’ll just say it starts at $39.95. Be sure to check out the sample lesson and the entire curriculum map. Go take a look and see if it’s right for you.
I know it might not be. If you can’t manage it right now, consider the $7 Knife Skills class. It’ll get you going in the right direction and give you a taste of the style of the full course.
Or just go grab your free Ages and Stages printable. It’s got a ton of great learning tasks so you can get your kids building their real life skills, no matter what stage they’re at or what age they are. It’s a gift for them AND for you. Happy Mothers’ Days, Productive Mamas!
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