A new resource is being trialled with early childhood services to deliver fun and engaging cooking experiences with children.
The Monash Health Health Promotion team are offering new Cooking Tubs on loan to early childhood services across the City of Casey, the City of Greater Dandenong, and Cardinia Shire.
The Cooking Together Tub initiative is one of many ways early childhood educators are supported to engage with children in fun and positive food and cooking activities.
The tubs contain a variety of cooking equipment and a toolkit with cooking tips and recipes designed to make it easy for educators to introduce new cooking experiences in their service.
The initiative was launched in Term 4, 2024. The tubs are a popular resource and are fully booked until the end of Term 3, 2025.
Initial feedback and evaluation from the services involved have been positive. So far, 100% of educators surveyed expressed that the Cooking Together Tub made engaging in cooking experiences with the children at their service easier.
Soo Lee, an educator from a service operating in the City of Greater Dandenong, reported, 'As a group, we prepared chicken wraps, sushi, and pizza as part of our lunch preparation.'
'During this cooking experience, the children had the opportunity to explore and discuss various ingredients. This led to deeper and more engaging learning, which was educational and delicious!'
The Cooking Together tubs will be distributed to participating services and further evaluation will be undertaken in June 2025.
The Early Childhood team's webpage has more information about the current initiatives.