A new resource is being trialed with early years services to support them in delivering fun and engaging cooking experiences with children.
Our team offers New Cooking Tubs on loan to early years services across the City of Casey, Greater Dandenong, and Cardinia Shire. The Cooking Tub initiative is one of many ways early years 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. 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.
Visit our early years webpage for more information about this initiative.