Sweet Development: Holiday Baking With Toddlers and Preschoolers
During the holiday season, as parents we want to make special rituals with our children. One of those rituals may include baking cookies or the infamous gingerbread house with our toddler or preschooler. Parents will all agree that this is a difficult challenge, but the benefits are so important for their development.
Baking Builds Math Skills
Kids learn all kinds of mathematical concepts while baking. When they are helping to dump 3 cups of flour into a bowl, they are counting.
Baking Enriches Oral Vocabulary and Reading Skills
Explanation and reasoning is an excellent way to build vocabulary while reading a recipe. Learning to follow the steps of a recipe is an important reading skill that will translate later into your child being able to understand how to read directions of any kind.
Baking Introduces Life Skills
It builds self-esteem by giving kids the skills they need to feed and look after themselves as they grow.
Baking Develops Fine-Motor Skills
For young children, baking provides fun fine-motor practice. When holding a spoon, kids are developing and strengthening their pincer grasp (needed for writing). Also, when they are stirring, they are building hand-eye coordination.
Baking Promotes Social Skills
"Who is going to do what?" and "Whose turn is it?" are both critical social lessons that apply to all sorts of situations. You are still modelling turn-taking and waiting skills.
Publications
News
GULFPORT, Miss. -- Every day at Gaston Point Head Start Center starts the same as teachers and staff strive to prepare each child for excellence in school.
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- The Mississippi State University Extension Service has a new leader at the helm of its programs aimed at early childhood education. Jamila Taylor was named executive director of Early Childhood Extension Programs in the MSU School of Human Sciences Feb. 16.
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Yahala Devine has been an in-home childcare provider in Mendenhall for two and a half years, but her career trajectory changed when she joined the Nurturing Homes Initiative, or NHI, program. The NHI program is dedicated to enhancing the quality of early education experiences in family childcare homes. By offering resources, training and support, NHI equips providers with the tools they need to improve child development outcomes and advance their own careers.
Success Stories
When 10-year-old Hasib of Starkville trots his horse during therapeutic riding, he experiences a lingering calmness that his mother attributes to the experience he shares with his horse.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/meet-the-ninth-grader-whos-helping-restore-mississippis-oyster-reefsMedia Chronicles Demi’s SuccessDemi Johnson is just 15 years old, but she is already impacting her community through 4-H and Girl Scouts.
In Rolling Fork, the Mississippi town in Sharkey County devastated by a twister on March 24, 2023, despair was not an option.
