How to Teach Cooking like a Homeschooler

In my series on thinking like a homeschooler I have addressed different concepts such as How to Study Anatomy like a Homeschooler and How to Teach Kids About Business like a Homeschooler . The articles stress the importance of being active the educational process and not just reading the book. This is especially true in learning to cook like a homeschooler.

In teaching cooking like a homeschooler, you can make the most of your home cooking lessons. You can sneak in and reinforce subjects and lessons learned in school, while also teaching a the very important life lessons on cooking.

For example, point out that there is less water in the pot after it has been boiling for a few minutes? This is a perfect opportunity to explain evaporation. You can also explain the science behind adding salt to boiling water and why water is also called H2O. Here are some more fun facts about water that you can share.

After boiling water, one of the very first cooking lessons will be boiling an egg. You may want to sacrifice and egg (raw or boiled) to show the similarities of an egg to a human cell. Yes, a chicken egg is a single and complete cell. You can prove it to your children here.

As my own daughter became comfortable in cooking and baking, following recipes, I did a very sneaky thing in a successful bid to teach her about fractions. I hid most of the measuring cups. At first, I kept if simple by only leaving a one-quarter and a one-third measuring cup in the drawer. This way she had to do math whenever she needed a full cup or other measurement other than what was provided. As she got the hang of figuring out these fractions, I would switch the cups out leaving only the one-third cup or one-fifth cup. That made figuring out one-half cup very interesting, but she got to see the purpose of being able to calculate fractions.

Hopefully, these examples will help you to get talking about things other than cooking in the kitchen. I suggest you purchase a book on cooking and science to keep in your kitchen such as On Food and Cooking, or Cooking for Geeks. With a resource like this, you can make the most out of your cooking lessons, just like a homeschooler would.