What is Classroom Cooking?
Classroom cooking engages children of all ages with hands-on activities, demonstrations, and tastings of local products. Students are exposed to different foods and cooking methods.
Why Classroom Cooking?
Through these experiences, students build important life skills, willingness to try new things, and form positive lifelong eating habits.
Classroom Management & Safety for Cooking:
- Cooking in the Classroom: Best Practices Guide
- Cooking in the Classroom: Tips and Safety
- Cooking with Preschool Children
Lesson Plans:
Great lesson plans make any new classroom project a cinch! Over the years, Growing Minds has developed farm to school activities that incorporate state and national curriculum. All Growing Minds lesson plans have connections to the Common Core State Standards, NC Essential Standards, and age-appropriate literature.
- Looking for a specific lesson plan? Find a lesson plan by typing key words such as your grade level, subject area, season, a specific fruit or vegetable, etc. in the search at the top of the webpage. Example: Recipe lessons plans.
- Lesson Plans by Age Group: To view a complete list of our lesson plans, visit our Lesson Plans webpage.
Children’s Literature:
Search this ever-growing database to find our recommendations, which are perfect for teaching about gardening, cooking, farms, food, and nature. Use our list to find children’s literature, cookbooks, and curriculum for the classroom, school library, or home. To view a complete list of our book collection, visit our Children’s Literature webpage.
- Looking for books on a specific topic? Type one or more keywords (like “apples”, “food”, or “cooking”) into the search bar to filter your search, or click on a particular tag to explore thematic books and resources. Use the “diversity” tag to explore books featuring multicultural characters and/or authors.
- Lending Library: Educators in the region are welcome to borrow any of the books featured in our database through the lending library at ASAP’s office. Children’s literature, cookbooks, and curriculum can all be checked out. Contact us to be sure the books you’re looking for are available and to schedule a time to pick them up from our office.
Growing Minds Resources for Classroom Cooking:
- Growing Minds Farm to Preschool Toolkit: This resource contains all of our preschool lesson plans, This Week in the Garden Preschool weekly activity guides, and Farm to School Goes Home weekly newsletter for families.
- I Tried Local: A Toolkit for Engaging Kids with Local Food and Farms: “I Tried Local…” is designed for use in ECE through second grade classrooms. The curriculum is divided into 10 units based on foods grown in North Carolina: blueberries, broccoli, carrots, green beans, mushrooms, peppers, radishes, sugar snap peas, sweet corn, and watermelons.
- Introduction to Farm to School Cooking in the Classroom
- Seasonal recipes in English and Spanish
- Borrow classroom cooking equipment from Growing Minds and view our equipment recommendations
- Video: How to do a Cooking Demo
- This Week in the Garden (K-2) and This Week in the Garden Preschool activity guides, including local food recipes and other farm to school resources
- Where to source food grown in the Appalachian Grown region
- Video: Cooking in the Classroom
- Seasonal Produce Availability Chart
- Kids Cooking Bingo Cards (also available in print) with accompanying resources
- Day by Day – Growing Minds Day by Day is a year-long series of seasonal educational resources designed for families and teachers. Weekly resource lists feature a theme related to food. Each resource list includes thematic recommendations for children’s literature, local food recipes, lesson plans, activities, and online resources curated by the Growing Minds team.