In addition to all the learning that goes on when cooking our recipes, here are more learning activities that can take place in and around the kitchen.
IN THE KITCHEN
Top Tips for Cooking
Set yourself up for success and become a confident, safe cook. Our top tips for cooking will set you up with a plan so you can have fun and enjoy a successful meal.
A Guide for Parents
At Project CHEF, we believe that children of any age can get busy in the kitchen. We have a few tips to help you enjoy spending time in the kitchen with kids.
Ingredient Substitutes
Following a recipe can be more challenging for some due to food allergies or intolerances. Knowing substitutes to use for certain ingredients is helpful in being able to alter recipes to suit individual needs.
What’s the Big Deal About Yeast?
What’s so special about yeast? Lots! Yeast is a single cell organism that has a few things in common with you. Conduct an experiment to find out what conditions yeast needs to survive and grow.
Crazy About Carrots
We’re crazy about carrots at Project CHEF and we celebrate them weekly in our program. Check here to discover many activities to get you learning more about this tasty BC vegetable.
Exploring Fruit
Fruit is not only delicious but packs a punch of nutrition as well. Click here to find fruit-filled activities to explore the many flavours, shapes, textures and colours.
Book: Salad People
Searching for new recipes can help keep a cook inspired. Check out one of our favourite kids' cookbooks that makes following a recipe easy with step-by-step instructions and pictures.
At the Table
Table Talk Topics
In Project CHEF, when it’s time to dine together we share conversation as well as food. Here are a few Table Talk Topics you can try when eating with your family.
IN THE CLASSROOM
Food Journal
When learning about food and cooking, it’s useful to have your own special book. We suggest a Food Journal. In your journal you can keep recipes, ideas, research, drawings, you name it. It will be all in one place and it’s all yours.
Top Tips for Cooking
Set yourself up for success and become a confident, safe cook. Our top tips for cooking will set you up with a plan so you can have fun and enjoy a successful meal.
Be a Food Journalist
You can learn a lot about someone by talking with them about food. Find out about interviewing someone from another generation about food from their childhood.
Acrostic Poetry
Cook. Healthy. Edible. Food. That’s what CHEF in Project CHEF stands for. It’s called an acronym. After doing lots of learning about food, write an acrostic poem to capture what you know about a topic.
BC Grown Ingredients – Part 1
We recognize many BC grown ingredients right away, but others may need a little research to find out what they are and how we can enjoy eating them. Discover some BC grown goodness you may have missed.
BC Grown Ingredients – Part 2
If you are eager to find out some more about BC veggies and fruit, here’s even more BC grown goodness that you can try.
Reading Nutritional Labels
You are what you eat! You might be surprised by the ingredients in some packaged food. To be sure you know what you are eating, learn about what’s in the packaged food you enjoy. This will help you make healthy choices.
What’s the Big Deal About Yeast?
What’s so special about yeast? Lots! Yeast is a single cell organism that has a few things in common with you. Conduct an experiment to find out what conditions yeast needs to survive and grow.
Cooking More or Less: Recipe Conversions
What happens if a recipe makes 12 cookies and you need 24? Chefs convert recipes all the time so they can make the amount that is needed. Discover how to learn this important skill.
Canada’s Food Guide: Tracking a Rainbow
How do we know what we should eat each day? Canada’s Food Guide guides people to eat colourful and wholesome food every day. Let’s take a look at Canada’s Food Guide and track what you eat in a week.
Crazy About Carrots
We’re crazy about carrots at Project CHEF and we celebrate them weekly in our program. Check here to discover many activities to get you learning more about this tasty BC vegetable.
Exploring Fruit
Fruit is not only delicious but packs a punch of nutrition as well. Click here to find fruit-filled activities to explore the many flavours, shapes, textures and colours.
Flowers for Mother
Is it possible to make a beautiful card using food scraps? Yes! Make your mom or someone special a hand painted card they are sure to love. This is a 5-star kid-approved activity.
Kitchen Contours
Sometimes you just want to do a quiet, relaxing activity all by yourself. Food and kitchen tools can provide inspiration and objects for drawing. Your observation skills will sharpen, and a calm tone will fill the air.
Book: Chicks and Salsa
Enjoy the video retelling of the book Chicks and Salsa then get busy searching for wonderful words. After that, make a sumptuous snack with our Latin inspired recipes.
Book: Stone Soup
Stone Soup is a traditional folk tale that tells the tale of town folk that learn the importance of caring and sharing from strangers and a pot of soup. Enjoy the story then devise a plan to care for and connect to your community.
Book: Enemy Pie
Can a secret recipe for Enemy Pie help get rid of an enemy? No, but it can help you make a new friend. Click here to hear the story Enemy Pie, then create a recipe for Friendship Cake.
Book: The Sandwich Swap
The Sandwich Swap begins with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ends with a hummus sandwich. Listen and read the story to learn about what comes in between and make a plan to cook some of our recipes.
IN THE GARDEN
Nature Walk - Part 1
Take a walk outdoors. When you stop to look around, you might discover food is everywhere, for you and other creatures. Observe, identify and draw what you discover in your neighbourhood.
Nature Walk – Part 2
Spring and summer are the perfect time of year to observe plants. Explore your neighbourhood to find interesting plants and learn to identify them. Document, draw and write down your discoveries.
Regrowing Veggie Scraps
There is a remarkable joy in making something from nothing. For this activity, take your veggie scraps and grow new food. You have everything you need at home to watch these plants grow.
Anyone Can Plant an Herb Garden
Herbs are our flavour-makers and they bring joy to our food. In this activity we share some tips to grow a mini herb garden. If you have never grown anything before, pick one plant you like to use in the kitchen and try growing it.
Growing Microgreens
Microgreens pack a punch — more flavour and more nutrition than the average salad green. Plant your own microgreens and discover that food tastes so good when you grow it yourself. Let’s get growing!
Harvesting Microgreens
Are they ready yet? Daily observation will yield tasty greens and in this activity you will learn about harvesting microgreens to add to your meals.
Greens Galore: Grow Your Own Salad
Salad greens you grow yourself are phenomenal! If you don’t try growing anything else this season, try one pot of salad greens. From seed to plate in a month, the satisfaction can’t be beat.
Growing Potatoes – Part 1
Planting potatoes is just plain satisfying. Easy. Fun. Forgiving. If you just put a potato in soil during the spring, it will grow. So, why not try this at home? We’ll show you how.
Growing Potatoes – Part 2
Scientists keep records, so do farmers, and so can you! Since planting your potatoes, what can you observe? Learn to look closely and write down your observations as the potatoes grow. The results will be delicious!
Worm Friends Anyone? Making Compost
Do you ever feel regret about putting unused veggies or vegetable trimmings in the city compost? If you have a little patio garden, try a making a worm bin to make your own compost.
Worm Compost Tea (Black Gold)
If you have been looking after your worm friends, you have worm castings waiting to fertilize your garden. Learn how to make a worm compost tea to give a boost of life to your garden soil.