Nothing beats learning while having fun. This is our philosophy here at Cooking with Languages. As it is gift-giving season, we thought we’d put together some food gift ideas for your little language learning foodies so they can do just that: learn while having fun.
All of the ideas below are food-related items (toys and non-toys ideas) that can also, for the most part, promote language learning.
1. Pastry cutters
You can find pastry cutters in almost any shape or size these days. But what about some fun cutters in the shape of letters? Perfect for practising the alphabet in a foreign language while baking or for playing spelling games, for example.
2. An Activity Cookbook
What better gift than a language learning activity cookbook? If you are a bilingual family, if English or Spanish is your minority language, this cookbook will be perfect for your little foodies. They can learn the target language while playing little games and cooking our authentic easy recipes. Our cookbook is available as a printed version or as a printable to download. Wrap it up with a little accessory (a whisk, a knife or our matching apron) and you have a great non-toy gift for the little bilingual foodie in your life. Find out more here.
3. A Fun Food Play Set
Learning a language is not just about learning words. It is also about learning a culture and the foods people in those countries eat. If your child is in love with Japanese culture, what about getting him or her a sushi set? We also love wooden pizza or cake sets for pretend play.
4. A Child-Friendly Knife
Get those skills sharpened with a knife designed specifically for children. Young kids will love being taken seriously and cutting on their own.
5. A Cooking Class
If you are after an experience gift, how about a cooking class? You could search your local area for classes aimed at children. You could also organise your own and team up with a speaker of your target language and organise something with other families. Or you could search for cooking classes in a holiday destination you might be visiting soon. Contact us for details of our Cooking With Languages classes
6. An Apron or Two 😉
Of course, no little foodie can cook without a lovely apron. Our matching adults and children aprons make a great family gift. They also come perfectly bundled with the cookbook mentioned above.
7. A Blank Recipe Book
What about purchasing a simple blank notebook and using it as a recipe book? This would make a really inexpensive gift and is perfect for encouraging writing skills in a target language.
8. Playmats/Placemats
Eat & Play Placemat by Chronicle Books
This could be a fun gift for families who like to eat out or for kids’ tables at events/parties. There are lots of paper placemats out there. These ones though are food-themed and are a great way to practice a language or even leave comments for the chef.
9. Food-Safe Pens
If your children like to bake cookies or decorating them, food-safe decorating pens could be so much fun to add some amazing colours and effects. Imagine how much fun they would have baking cookies and writing on them!
10. A Snack Box
Sample box from SnackCrate
If your children like to eat as well as cooking, a snack box from treats around the world would make a fun gift. You can find subscriptions to boxes like these with snacks from around the world. These make for an excellent opportunity to learn about different cultures from around the world and will be perfect for all ages.
So, there you have food gift ideas for your little language learners. What other ideas would you like to share with us?
Don’t forget to check out our shop!
Get your kids in the kitchen and watch them grow!
It’s time to get your kids in the kitchen!
Young children love to copy what other people are doing. They gain great pleasure out of helping their parents wash the car, tidy up or even put the shopping away. A positive way to put this curiosity to good use and satisfy their inquisitive minds is by teaching them a new language whilst performing theses activities.
Get your kids in the kitchen and they can bake cakes, make pasta or play with pastry dough while you feed their mind with new words.
By having fun getting messy in the kitchen, they won’t actually realise they are being taught a new language.
Learning a language often means learning by rote and repetition, as words and phrases need to be repeated to be remembered. But repetition does not have to be boring. Making the experience fun helps to keep young learners curious and keen to carry on.
[bctt tweet=”Repetition need not be boring! Make it fun and watch them learn #languagelearning” username=”cooklanguage”]
Children are sponges. They are easily excitable. When they are excited and interested in something they absorb more. They learn without realising.
No matter what age your child is, they can have fun learning languages through cooking or simply playing with food.
Children use all of their senses while cooking. By helping them learn to cook and to know about food, you help them to be more comfortable with different foods and can even make them healthier eaters.
Pressuring young children to eat vegetables at the dinner table is known to be counterproductive – it actually increases resistance to healthy foods.
Download FREE materials and great gifts …
In a nutshell, kids like what they know and they eat what they like. So, making food and cooking fun has many benefits.
In addition to using food and cooking for learning languages, you can use them to help with:
- Improving motor skills in younger children: start with soft foods that they can add/mix/grate/cut with plastic scissors or child-friendly knives …
- Mathematical skills: from number recognition, basic sums, to learning weights and measures,
- Reading and comprehension: encourage your child to read the recipe to you, ask them questions that spark their imagination eg. How do they think the food will look? Taste? smell?
- Telling the time and measuring time
- Boosting vocabulary: ingredients, using descriptive words to describe how food looks, smells and sounds while it’s cooking,
Children, of all ages, have fun while using all five senses which is why cooking is so entertaining. First, they’ll be using their eyes to find ingredients and read the recipe. Then they will be touching the food as they chop it or mix it. After that comes the sound of the cooking as the food sizzles, bubbles or makes a popping noise. This gives off the lovely smells which help to get the mouth watering as they finally get to taste their delicious dishes.
As well as new words, you can introduce some simple maths while you cook. Your children can weigh out ingredients on the scales or use measurements such as litres and grams. If rolling out pastry or pasta, they’ll need a ruler to measure the length too. They’ll be learning to tell the time as they stir the pot for two minutes or bake a cake for 40 minutes, for example.
Then there are the words they will use. It’s not just learning about ingredients but they will be boosting their vocabulary with new verbs such as basting, boiling, rolling or roasting; and adding adjectives like bitter, sweet, delicious, juicy, salty, smooth or lumpy. You can encourage them to communicate by asking them how the food feels or to describe how it tastes.
By getting children involved in the cooking process, it’s a sneaky way to get them to try new things. If they’ve cooked it, they’ll want to try it so think about introducing different ingredients or spices as you go along. Hopefully, this will encourage them to be more experimental with flavours. Most children go through a fussy eating stage but getting them to help prepare the family meals can be one way to get them to taste new foods. They’ll feel proud and excited at helping and should be more likely to eat something they’ve helped to make, especially if you say how yummy it looks.
To sum up, children can learn new words, a new language, simple maths, the time and communication skills by helping prepare a meal. Bearing that in mind, we think cooking with children is a fun way to teach while you also get a little helper in the kitchen. Now, we just have to persuade them that washing up is a great game to play too!
Try these simple activities, in your target language, for starters…
(These ideas can be adapted to whatever language you are introducing.)
- Using your fruit bowl …
- Can you name the fruits in your bowl?
- What colour are they?
- How many are there?
- What do they smell like?
- What do they feel like?
- Open your cutlery drawer …
- Can you name each utensil?
- How many are there of each item?
- What is each item used for?
- Create stickies (and if you are artistic, add drawings too) of Kitchen items …
- E.g. fridge, freezer, sink, cupboard, drawer, tea towel, dishcloth …
4. Play the “hot/cold” game …
- The idea is that your child has to guess which word (in the target languages) is the correct name for the items in your kitchen. As they get closer to the item, you say “hotter” (in your target language) and as the move further away you say “colder” (in your target language)
5. Use out Activity Cookbook
- If your target language is Spanish or English, choose one of the recipes from our Activity Cookbook and work together with your child.
- Before you start cooking:
- Look at the ingredients, practice the words together (listen to the audio on our website for help)
- Make a shopping list together, for the required ingredients
- Visit the supermarket and purchase the ingredients, with your child, repeating the words and quantities as shown in our book
- When you are ready to cook:
- Tell your child (in the target language) what they need to get ready, item by item (using the book for reference)
- From the fridge, we need …..
- From the cupboard, we need …
- Follow the instructions, step by step and make the simple and scrummy recipes.
- Practice phrases and expressions to say what you love, like, don’t like …
There are so many ways how children learn a language in the kitchen, these are just a few simple ideas. We have many more to share with you!
Introducing Arthur Apple’s Pancake Challenge! Designed to get Kids in the Kitchen and Learning New Languages!
We have a simple and scrummy recipe to share with you. It is really easy to follow.
This is one of the recipes in our Activity Cookbook that we funded thanks to YOU on Crowdfunder.
Ingredients
125gr plain flour
1 egg
250ml milk
Salt
Your favourite fillings: sugar, lemon, Nutella, fresh fruit, honey…
How to make the pancakes …
- Sieve the flour and a pinch of salt into a large bowl.
- Make a hole in the centre of the flour and add the egg and some milk.
- Whisk all the ingredients together until you have a smooth liquid.
- Add the remaining milk and whisk again.
How to cook the pancakes…
- Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan.
- Remove the excess oil before adding the pancake mix.
- Add a large spoon of mix to the frying pan and spread it over the base (the easiest way is to rotate the frying pan slowly).
- As the pancake sets, loosen it with a spatula and flip over (use a plate if you are not confident flipping).
Arthur’s Perfect Pancake Tips:
- For skinny French style pancakes, make sure your mixture is nice and runny.ie. add lots of the milk
- For fatter American style pancakes, use less milk to make a thicker mixture.
- BEFORE entering the Pancake Challenge, experiment with the mixture to get your best pancake.
- Loosen the pancake with a spatula before flipping.
- HAVE FUN!!!!
How Do You Enter Arthur Apple’s Pancake Challenge?
- Once you have perfected the art of making simple and scrummy pancakes, you need to practice flipping them.
- For the challenge, you can flip your pancakes wherever you like … in the kitchen, in your garden, on the beach, in the snow … let your imagination run wild!
- When you are ready, ask somebody to video you flipping your pancake, as many times as you can.
- At the start of your video, tell us your name, age and where you are from.
- Count out loud, in whatever language you can speak, whilst flipping your pancakes.
- Post your video to our Cooking with Languages Facebook Page (Pop over to the page and see the wonderful video Bodhi and Himani sent to us!)
What other ideas do you have for using food and cooking for introducing new languages?
We’d love to share your ideas on our Facebook page and here on our website.
There are many reasons why learning a language through cooking is a recipe for success …
Cooking is very fashionable at the moment with millions glued to the television to watch shows like MasterChef, The Great British Bake Off and Hell’s Kitchen with the straight-talking Gordon Ramsay. Celebrity chefs are also making waves in the kitchen with the effervescent Jamie Oliver changing the way we view food and the lovable Hairy Bikers making great dishes with local produce. So it makes perfect sense to use this tremendous interest in food to help people learn a new language. They can do something they enjoy while learning new words in a fun and creative way.
It is something that all ages can try – from tiny tots helping to make cakes or biscuits through to older people who fancy cooking something different while practising a new language, such as Spanish. You can join classes or go it alone through books or apps. For instance, if you’re learning Spanish you could find a recipe in the original language for a traditional dish like paella, gazpacho or rabo de toro (oxtail stew) and follow it. You will learn a lot of vocabulary such as ingredients, verbs and different verb tenses.
[bctt tweet=” Learning a language through cooking is a recipe for success! #bilingualbooks ” username=”cooklanguage”]
Learning a language through cooking is a recipe for success on so many different levels. The most important being that you get to cook and taste a gorgeous meal, so that’s an incentive in itself. It also uses all five senses:
Sight: Reading the recipe, looking at all the gorgeous ingredients and watching your food take shape
Smell: Wonderful aromas of individual ingredients plus those sensational cooking smells as you prepare your food
Sound: The noise of food as you chop and cook whether it is sizzling in a pan or gently bubbling away.
Touch: The different shape and texture of your food – kneading dough, or getting stuck into making cakes or pasta.
Taste: The best bit! Trying your food as you go along and then sharing your finished dish with family or friends.
Download FREE materials and great gifts …
Learning languages through cooking has so many advantages.
First of all, reading through the recipe, looking up words you don’t understand and trying to commit them all to memory. Then, not only are you reading new articles, but you are understanding what you are reading. If you are a newbie in the kitchen, it might mean you find out what blanching, clarifying, deglazing or searing mean. It’s a crafty way of making sure you understand what you have just read because you can’t wing it when you’re cooking. If you don’t know your meuniere from your marinate, you could be in trouble!
For younger people following a recipe helps you to follow instructions. You need to go through the recipe step by step so your food turns out as it should. Obviously, this is another useful tool to master because there are so many situations in life when you have to follow the rules.
Finally, you should be having fun while you learn. You’re adding to your vocabulary, increasing understanding while learning more about the culture and history behind the language through gastronomy.
If that isn’t enough to get you cooking up a storm in the kitchen while learning a new language, Newcastle University also uses this method of learning. French language students have been taught through cooking. They have instructions on the computer to guide them along with motion sensor technology integrated into the cooking utensils and other equipment which are linked to the computer so it can be clearly seen if the student is understanding the instructions properly.
We firmly believe the best way to learn something is by doing it for yourself. By cooking and learning about foods, you will learn more about a country while those new words sink in.
Help us to bring the love of food and cooking into more households and classrooms!
Ok, my little language-loving superheroes, let’s have some fun!
Let’s get Arthur Apple’s Pancake Challenge started …
I love making pancakes. Do you?
I have a simple and scrummy recipe to share with you. It’s really easy to follow.
This is one of the recipes in our Activity Cookbook that we are launching this year, thanks to your amazing support for our Crowdfunding campaign!
Let’s make pancakes …
To make pancakes, you will need:
To make the pancake mix, you will need:
How to make the pancakes …
- Sieve the flour and a pinch of salt into a large bowl.
- Make a hole in the centre of the flour and add the egg and some milk.
- Whisk all the ingredients together until you have a smooth liquid.
- Add the remaining milk and whisk again.
How to cook the pancakes…
- Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan.
- Remove the excess oil before adding the pancake mix.
- Add a large spoon of mix to the frying pan and spread it over the base (the easiest way is to rotate the frying pan slowly).
- As the pancake sets, loosen it with a spatula and flip over (use a plate if you are not confident flipping).
- For skinny French style pancakes, make sure your mixture is nice and runny.ie. add lots of the milk
- For fatter American style pancakes, use less milk to make a thicker mixture.
- BEFORE entering the Pancake Challenge, experiment with the mixture to get your best pancake.
- Loosen the pancake with a spatula before flipping.
- HAVE FUN!!!!
How Do You Enter Arthur Apple’s Pancake Challenge?
Once you have perfected the art of making simple and scrummy pancakes, you need to practice flipping them.
For the challenge, you can flip your pancakes wherever you like … in the kitchen, in your garden, on the beach, in the snow … let your imagination run wild 😉
When you are ready, ask somebody to video you flipping your pancake, as many times as you can.
At the start of your video, tell us your name, age and where you are from.
Count out loud, in whatever language you can speak, whilst flipping your pancakes.
Post your video to our Cooking with Languages Facebook Page
THERE WILL BE PRIZES FOR THE BEST VIDEOS !!!
[bctt tweet=”We want to hear children counting in as many languages as possible! #pancakechallenge” username=”cooklanguage”]
Come And Meet The New Kids On The (Chopping) Block!
Say “Hi” or “Hola” to Cooking with Languages, a clever new way to help children – and grown ups – learn a language in a fun way.
Cooking with Languages is the brainchild of Lisa Sadleir who wanted to design an exciting and interactive way to learn languages. Not only do parents or teachers sow the seeds for bringing up bilingual children but they teach them to cook at the same time. A recipe for success, or what!
Many of you will remember endlessly reciting verbs in French, German or Spanish classes while trawling through text books full of dreary families. Well, your children do not have to be subjected to this. Their language-learning will be full of colour with interesting characters like Arthur Apple and Nerea Naranja, who will soon be joined by Olivier l’Oignon, Klaus Kartoffel and Paola Pomodoro. (During the campaign you can vote for who comes to life next!)
Cooking with Languages is all about hands-on fun as children make easy (and scrummy!) recipes which you can help them to eat; play games and other activities; and listen and repeat from audios recorded by Lisa’s son Joshua and daughter Francesca, both bilingual in English and Spanish, who are the voices of Arthur and Nerea.
Children learn by listening, watching and copying so the activity cookbook encourages them to listen to the audios, watch their teachers or parents, and get their hands dirty while cooking up tasty treats. Their minds are like sponges so they’ll be soaking up new words while playing at Junior Masterchef in the kitchen.
“I want to do for languages what Jamie Oliver has done for cooking,” says Lisa, trilingual herself and passionate about giving children the gift of languages.
“We’ve had a lot of fun creating the materials as a family – trying out new recipes in our own kitchen, recording the audios and thinking up new ways to make learning Spanish exciting. And we’ve had some great feedback on what we’ve produced so far!”
[bctt tweet=”Help @CookLangauge do for languages what @jamieoliver has done for cooking. #crowdfunding” via=”no”]
In the books you will find:
- content is in English and Spanish
- simple, scrummy recipes to make so children can get messy while learning languages
- fun assistants to help with the cooking
- games and activities to practise
- eye-catching illustrations to engage the children
You can also be at the cutting-edge of this innovative way to learn by joining Cooking with Languages in its quest to raise £5,000 (about €5,800) by January 31st.
Fundraisers can get a copy of the English/Spanish activity cookbook and other materials at reduced rates. There’ll be sneak peeks at new materials and the chance to have your own recipe printed in the book and dedicated to your own children.
But best of all, everyone who contributes will be helping to make language learning fun and give more children the gift of language.
[bctt tweet=”Help @CookLangauge do for languages what @jamieoliver has done for cooking. #crowdfunding” via=”no”]
Contributions start from just £5 (about €5.80) and can be made quickly, securely and easily via PayPal.
Basically, the more books ordered, the cheaper they are, which means more people or schools can afford them. With your support, Lisa and her family can produce more affordable materials and grow many more language-loving superheroes.
Research shows there’s a lack of materials for young Spanish learners so Lisa is working with a pre-school and primary teacher in the UK to create materials to be used in the classroom. The sooner children are exposed to foreign languages the better.
The dream is to produce all the materials in French, German and Italian in partnership with fellow collaborators and any other languages that people want.
THANK YOU for supporting this campaign!
Visit the Crowdfunder page for more information.
Help Cooking with Languages give more children the gift of language by supporting us in the Crowdfunder January Jumpstart 2017
Well, 2017 is starting with a bang.
We are excited to share that we have been selected as 1 of just 100 start-ups for the Crowdfunder January Jumpstart. Our month-long crowdfunding push starts on Thursday 12 January and we hope to raise £5,000 towards publishing costs to give more children the gift of language.
Crowdfunder has selected 100 projects be part of January Jumpstart, an exclusive four week crowdfunding program for the UK’s entrepreneurs of 2017.
Our project, Cooking with Languages is designed to make learning a language exciting and interactive. We wand to help create oodles of language-loving superheroes.
Gone is the tedious studying of verbs and complicated vocabulary from dull textbooks. Cooking with Languages is all about hands-on fun as children make easy (and scrummy!) recipes, take part in games and other activities, and listen and repeat from audios recorded by my son Joshua and daughter Francesca, both bilingual in English and Spanish.
“I want to do for languages what Jamie Oliver has done for cooking,” says Lisa, trilingual herself and passionate about giving children the gift of languages. Conscious that children often see learning as a chore, she decided to make languages fun.”
Our project started in English and Spanish kitchens, helped by language assistants Arthur Apple and Nerea Naranja. Further down the line we hope that Olivier l’Oignon, Klaus Kartoffel and Paola Pomodoro will be valuable language kitchen hands, but for now we are concentrating on materials in English and Spanish.
“These are my children’s languages so they’re closest to my heart,” Lisa says. “We’ve had a lot of fun creating the materials as a family – trying out new recipes in our own kitchen, recording the audios and thinking up new ways to make learning Spanish exciting. And we’ve had some great feedback on what we’ve produced so far!”
[bctt tweet=”Help @CookLangauge do for languages what @jamieoliver has done for cooking. #crowdfunding” via=”no”]
Funds raised via the January Jumpstart will help bring down costs.
“Publishing on an ad hoc basis is prohibitively expensive,” Lisa explains, “and I need funds to bulk-order and make the materials cheaper and therefore more accessible.”
We already have language teachers in both the UK and Spain keen to use our materials and bring that much-needed fun element into the classroom.
Those who join Cooking with Languages in their quest to raise £5,000 (about €5,800) by January 31st will be richly rewarded. Fundraisers will be able to obtain a copy of the activity cookbook and other materials at reduced rates. There’ll be sneak peeks at new materials and the chance to have your own recipe in the book and dedicated to your own children. But best of all, everyone who contributes will be helping to make language learning fun and give more children the gift of language.
A Sneak Peek At Just A Few Of The Crowdfunder Rewards:
Contributions start at as little as £5 (approximately €5.80!) and can be made quickly, securely and easily via PayPal.
Which Language Should We Launch Next? The Decision is YOURS!
