Children love to help in the kitchen, whether it's cracking eggs or licking the beaters. Parents who are letting kids take part in cooking may not realize this, but they are opening the door to a lot of benefits for their children. Cooking games, online and off, are both useful in child development.
Cooking games have many assets for children that help them to grow in many ways. Children who play cooking games online tend to have improved memory and better cognitive skills. Those that play cooking games offline engage in things like sensory play and role-playing. Playing both online and offline will combine these benefits for children to promote healthy development.
Getting children involved in the kitchen also helps them with creativity and fine motor skills. It can encourage healthier eating and an interest in food, which may be great for picky eaters. Cooking can help young kids learn and practice some basic math concepts and build language skills as well. So, jump right into the list below of online educational cooking games that are designed for children. Of course, keep screen time limits as you see fit.
10 My Panda Chef
The kitchen can be an unsafe place for young children, but that won't stop their interest in exploring all the things in this game. They can play in the BabyBus kitchen and try out all the fun activities such as preparing food, cooking, and juicing, in a less dangerous manner!
9 Diner DASH Adventures
Diner DASH Adventures is a free-to-play strategy game available for download on iOS and Android devices through Google Play. Families can talk about microtransactions in games to kids. The game's story is cheesier than the grilled cheese served at Flo's diner, but it's still a silly and entertaining adventure making it one of the best free apps for kids according to Educational App Store.
8 ABC Food
ABC Food is an innovative teaching app about different types of food, from fruits and vegetables to sweets. The app links to YouTube videos that are curated by the Peapod Labs staff and are chosen to be interesting and safe for kids, and there are also some foods that have interactive parts, so kids can play with the foods. The app teaches the alphabet using images and videos and allows kids to jump to new words by tapping the letters.
7 PBS Healthy Kids
PBS HealthyKids is a portal to all the PBS Kids content that revolves around healthy eating. Sponsored by Whole Foods Market, it has a colorful variety of activities that teach young kids about good food choices, helping them celebrate "tiny victories."
6 Cake Doodle
Cake Doodle is a fun, creative pastime. It allows kids to choose from several cake recipes, performing an abbreviated version of putting the ingredients together to bake a cake. Then the main part, decorate the cake. There are loads of different icings and decorations to make the cake exactly the way kids decide. Then users can tap the cake repeatedly to take big, ridiculous bites out of it.
5 Toca Tea Party
Toca Tea Party lets kids invite 'friends' to a tea party. They set the table, choose their favorite cookies and cakes, serve the tea, and away they go! Toca Tea Party lets parents play together with their kids in a way that stimulates their imagination.
4 Grandma's Kitchen
Grandma's Kitchen is an educational app covering kindergarten skills such as alphabetical order, phonics blends, compound words, counting by tens, and basic addition making it one of the best cooking apps for kids. Grandma asks the questions as she works in the kitchen, offering fun brain breaks as rewards.
3 Issa's Edible Adventures
Issa's Edible Adventures follows the adventures of Issa as she discovers ingredients from around the world to help make wonderful dishes. This app was inspired by celebrity chef Aliya LeeKong who has a passion for bringing global and socially conscious foods into everyday cooking.
2 Hello Kitty Lunchbox
Hello Kitty works in a cafeteria in school and must prepare and make lunches for everybody. Kids get to help her do this in Hello Kitty Lunchbox. In this game, kids must create 4 custom recipes, complete challenges, and use the many appliances and gadgets available to make their meals and eat alongside Hello Kitty too. And if the recipes are made according to how Hello Kitty wants them to be, kids get to earn rewards which they can use to decorate the lunchboxes.
1 Dr. Panda's Restaurant 2
Dr. Panda Restaurant is a popular cooking game and kids cooking app that lets kids experiment with different kitchen tools and foods and be as creative as they want. Kids work with a variety of foods, vegetables, fruits, pasta, sauces, spices, and meats. They also learn about tools like the oven, stove, wok, food processor, grater, and knife, to create the dishes that customers order.
Kids can learn some cooking basics as they choose the ingredients and kitchen appliances and tools to create the dish their restaurant customer ordered. They'll learn how foods react to different cooking methods too, pan frying, boiling in water, stir-frying in a wok, or baking in an oven.
Sources: Apple App Store/iOS, Google Play, Educational App Store., Peapod Labs, Whole Foods Market