Heavenly Homemakers

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Simple Recipes We’re Using to Help Our 5-Year Old Learn Kitchen Skills

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We’re starting over at our house! Just like we did with our “first set of kids” we are teaching our new 5-year old Bonus Boy how to cook. Here are the favorite simple recipes we are using to help him learn kitchen skills!

Hopefully, you won’t get too tired of hearing me encourage you to teach your kids to cook. :) Obviously, it’s more important that you teach them to love the Lord and love people. Focus on that first.

But also, eating is something we must all do every day of our lives. Your kids need to know how to prepare simple foods (or complicated foods, if you are my 19-year old). It’s a much-needed skill, and guess what?

After putting in hours of effort, making lots of messes, and having a blessed mixture of frustration and fun with my oldest four kids – they can all cook. It is fantastic. The work involved was entirely worth it. And when all is said and done, we made a lot of awesome memories (and Monkey Bread).

Sometimes now, they feed me. Often they feed themselves. They will someday feed their wives and children. This is beautiful!

Now, we’re starting all over again. This little one moved in with us when he was four. He has become the 5th Coppinger Boy! If I have the audacity to make food without him, he can’t possibly understand why. “But I wanted to help you!” Well, who am I to argue with that?

He cracks eggs, makes messes, helps measure ingredients, makes messes, stirs carefully, makes messes – well, he’s also learning how to use a broom and dustpan. ;)

Teaching Kids to Cook is MessyYum

So what? I like a clean kitchen, but now that I have teen and adult kids who can cook, I realize more than ever that the messes from when they were little are just part of the teaching process. If I expect a mess from the little one in training, then I’m less frustrated when a mess inevitably happens. If we happen to crack, pour, and stir correctly so as to avoid a mess, well, that’s a bonus.

Ready for some kid-friendly recipes?

Simple Recipes to Help Kids Learn Kitchen Skills

Here are some of our favorite simple recipes we are using right now to help teach our 5-year old basic kitchen skills. He helps measure, pour, and stir. As we work, I talk through everything we are doing so that he learns the vocabulary of cooking and the reasons we do what we do.

In addition, he helps:

  • Crack eggs for Scrambled Cheese Eggs (he cracks it, then hands it to me to open it into a bowl).
  • Put frozen fruit and mixed greens into the blender for Smoothies.
  • Do whatever he can with whatever I’m making because he really wants to be a part of all of it! So if possible, I always try to find him a job while I’m cooking or baking.

Looking for more help and recipes as you pull your kids into the kitchen with you?

If you really want to go all in and teach your kids to cook this summer, I encourage you to invest in Katie Kimball’s Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. I used this course with Malachi and plan to use it with Bonus Boy too. It is FANTASTIC!!! Get the details here. And pick up her awesome FREEBIE —>

What are your favorite foods to make with your kids?

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Summer Activities for Kids: Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

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This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Looking for some fun activities to do with your kids this summer? I’ve enjoyed 22 summers with kids (and counting!), so I certainly have a few ideas to share! Stay tuned during the next few weeks as we provide all kinds of suggestions for making your summer with your kids meaningful. (Subscribe here so you won’t miss out!) Today’s idea: Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

There are many glorious reasons to make smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles with your kids. What are these reasons, you ask? Oh, I am more than happy to share:

  1. Smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles are obviously perfect to enjoy on a hot day because they are so refreshing and cool.
  2. When you make food WITH your kids, they are much more likely to want to eat it.
  3. You can sneak all kinds of nourishing foods into smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles – so basically, you are making treats that are very healthy!
  4. Making smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles are a super simple way to get all your kids – from tiny to big – into the kitchen to learn some kitchen skills!

When our 5-year old Bonus Boy first moved in with us, one of the first fun activities we did together was to make “milkshakes.” (They are really considered smoothies, but he “doesn’t like smoothies – he only likes milkshakes.” Call them whatever you want! We load them with fresh greens, frozen strawberries and bananas, farm fresh whole milk, and sometimes even an avocado. He drinks these “milkshakes” right up! And he loves to help us make them, so we aren’t sneaking the healthy stuff in. He puts it all into the blender himself!

Below are 13 of our favorite smoothie, milkshake, and popsicle recipes. Take note that you can make a smoothie and then freeze it into a popsicle – a double good treat! Or look there at #13 – make homemade wholesome pudding, then freeze it into Pudding Pops! Creamsicles anyone? Yep! There’s a recipe for those too!

Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

  1. Pineapple Mango Smoothies
  2. Pineapple-Orange Slushies
  3. Creamy Orange Cooler
  4. Strawberry Peach Slushies
  5. Icy Cold Milkshake Treats
  6. Green Machine Milkshakes
  7. Easy Peppermint Milkshakes
  8. Fresh Peach Milkshakes
  9. Strawberry Milkshakes
  10. Strawberry Creamsicles
  11. Mock Frozen Yogurt
  12. Orange Creamsicles
  13. Homemade Pudding Pops

Sky’s the limit on the variety of milkshakes you can make with different fruits and fun combinations. The same is true for smoothies! Use whatever you have in your freezer or fridge. Use up odds and ends of leftover fruit that is starting to go bad. Use milk, cream, kefir, yogurt – whatever you have. There’s hardly a way to go wrong with these ideas!

HINT!

Do you think your kids would enjoy the taste of these milkshakes and smoothies? But they are turned off by the color of these goodies when you add greens to your blender? Yep, I hear ya. We’ve learned to pour the mixture into a solid cup so that it isn’t see-through. We top it with a lid and let the kids choose a fun straw. Ta-da! Problem solved. The kids can’t see the funny-looking mixture – they just know the contents inside their cups are delish!

Looking for the perfect blender?

Any ol’ blender will do. But nothing is amazing as a Blendtec or Vitamix if you want a perfectly smooth smoothie. Your family is much more likely to guzzle down their smoothies and shakes if they are seedless and chunk-less. :) Here are more details on why I love my Blendtec.

Looking for great homemade popsicle makers?

I just invested in the double-set of these. They are fantastic! Why the double-set? Well, because 6 popsicles just isn’t enough. Making 12 popsicles at once is much better, don’t you think!?

By the way, while the above 13 recipes are beyond great and extra full of nourishment, it is worth a mention that I often pour 100% juice into our popsicle molds to make simple fruit juice popsicles. Incredibly easy and a super money saver!

Looking for more help as you pull your kids into the kitchen with you?

And if you really want to go all in and teach your kids to cook this summer, I encourage you to invest in Katie Kimball’s Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. I used this course with Malachi and plan to use it with Brayden too. It is FANTASTIC!!! Get the details here.

Psst! Did you see our other Summer Kid Activity ideas so far?

Stay tuned for more fun Summer Kid Activity ideas!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!