If you’ve been around here for a while you likely know my passion for involving children in everyday life, particularly cooking in the kitchen. So naturally I am always thinking of all the ways to incorporate learning there. A big one is math. For reference, my son is 3-years-old.

I have put a lot of effort into creating a kitchen space that is accessible for my toddler and serves the needs of our whole family. This looked different when we lived in our small apartment, but most of the factors were still present there as well. Here is a look at our kitchen and ways we make it accessible for our toddler (and baby!). My toddler is 2 years 9 months and my baby is 11 months.

This post has been a long time coming since I did my cooking with toddler series several months ago. Knives are an exciting tool for toddlers to use if introduced safely. Of course with all the tools I will discuss you should supervise your child closely. These tools are toddler-safe only when supervised. This post goes through how we introduced knives from 14 months through the knives he uses now at 2.5. It also discusses some of the progression of skills with the knives we introduced to our toddler.

My number one recommendation to purchase for cooking with toddlers is a learning tower or sous chef tower. These are a classic in the Montessori world because they allow toddlers to become more active participants in cooking. This item is, without question, our most loved baby item behind possibly the baby wrap.

Where do you start? This is quite possibly my most asked question when it comes to cooking with toddlers or even our Montessori home more generally. It is also a question I struggle a bit with because I don’t have a straightforward answer. But, I will do my best to share our experience along with some of my tips here. This will be the first in a series I will share about introducing different aspects of cooking.