Yes! The beauty of this course is that it was totally designed to be family-friendly. I taught six children, two at each level, at the same time for almost every lesson. There are special “teaching multiple children” sections in the course materials to give you ideas on the order in which to present skills so that one age level can be practicing while you are working with another age level.

For almost every class, you’ll be able to juggle 2 or 3 age levels at the same time. And what they make usually ends up coming together to make one meal or snack that everyone can enjoy! See the Curriculum Map for the intricate module integrations to see what your kids might do!

The best way to determine whether a child is Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced is to peruse the Curriculum Map that lists the skills taught at each level.

Some of the Beginner Level skills are appropriate for very young children, like ages 2-6 (i.e. careful pouring, building a colorful salad, spreading butter). Some of them are important foundations for any age, like peeling correctly, cross-hatch dicing, and measuring.

The Intermediate Level lays very important foundations such as sharp knife safety and stovetop safety. If your child has never worked with a sharp knife or at the stove, then they are definitely at Intermediate or Beginner, no matter their age. If you’re unsure about their ability in those areas, you can always watch part of the videos from Intermediate class 2 and 5 and see how your kids fare.

You can also pick and choose what classes to utilize and only teach a few from a level before moving on as well. I know of some young teens whose parents started them at the Beginner Level just for peeling and a couple of the other skills taught there. A teen could blow through those in combination with the Intermediate Level in a few hours. Many of our members with multiple children in the family have simply chosen to start everyone at the Beginner Level and move through all 24 lessons together.

The bottom line is that your child’s experience, personality, and your tolerance for new things and risks will direct where you begin, and our course will take them from there! Consider it a prerequisite for Intermediate that the child knows how to peel vegetables, cut with a dull knife, and measure accurately. To move to Advanced, a child must have some experience with sharp knives and the stove, as well as cracking eggs and reading a recipe on their own. Lots of foundational skills at the Intermediate Level!

Yes. In the terms and conditions it says it’s ok to teach any number of children. You may copy the memory tools for them but not the entire recipe eBook or lesson plans, and you can’t share the videos except for viewing them. This is awesome for inviting neighbors or cousins over to your house and also applies to homeschool co-ops where many families get together.

The only thing members don’t have permission for is teaching others for-profit. That’s a separate For-Profit License.

If you're part of a homeschool co-op or learning pod, you might be interested in our group discount on a three-month membership.

The eCourse is very allergy-friendly and provides many substitutions for special diets! The beauty of this course is that the focus is on the skills, not the recipes. If someone in your family can’t or won’t eat an ingredient we use in the demonstrated recipe, it’s easy to swap it out for another recipe and still practice the same cooking skill. There is a section in every lesson plan with ideas for allergies and substitutions of many kinds.

For example, we make ranch and Italian – the sour cream base for the ranch wouldn’t work for a dairy allergy or vegan, but kids could still make Italian, so the skill still gets appropriate practice. Our pancake and muffin recipes use eggs, but an egg-sensitive family could easily practice the skills of flipping pancakes and making a recipe all by oneself with any favorite pancake or muffin recipe.

As long as the children won’t be traumatized by their experience not matching the videos exactly (we have a sensitive type here at the Kimball household, so I know how that can go), you should feel confident embarking on the course with any dietary restriction.

Here are some individual breakdowns so you can see how much you might have to adapt:

• Nuts: There are no nuts in the class recipes, and the one activity that uses peanut butter in a central way has many other options to practice the same skill.
• Gluten: All the recipes except two are already gluten-free, and both of those have GF alternative recipes, although that may shift the skill a little bit.
• Dairy: Many skills of the 30 already fit a dairy-free diet, and the few that don’t are fairly easy to adapt. Suggestions provided in the lesson plans.
• Grain-free/Paleo: One skill at each age level does not fit a Paleo diet: two that have to do with legumes and one about cooking rice. Adaptations are included in the notes to switch up the lesson completely. Other than that, one other skill at each level will need to be adapted to use a different recipe but the same/similar skill. (See the Curriculum Map above for a more in-depth look at all the lessons.)
• Eggs: Eggs are pretty central in about 2 out of the 24 lessons. There’s just no substitute for eggs when the skill you’re teaching is “cracking eggs” or “cooking scrambled eggs.” I still think the course would be worthwhile for kids with egg allergies – they’d only have to substitute 2 lessons max.
• Sugar: There is very little sweetener of any kind in the course, and you can use natural sweeteners like sucanat or honey or substitute your own recipes for muffins if you like.
• Vegan: All the skills in the Beginner Level apply fine to vegans, although 2 recipes would need adaptations. Two skills (eggs and ground meat) at the Intermediate Level would need replacements; suggestions provided in the materials. Two skills at the Advanced Level (cooking eggs and a white sauce) would also need replacements or adaptations (a dairy-free white sauce for example). I’d say that if there are 30 skills taught, only about 4 of them relate specifically to animal products.

If you have other allergies, feel free to email a question to support@kidscookrealfood.com and I’ll get back to you ASAP. If you get the VIP level with Facebook support version, I’d be able to help you find suitable allergy-friendly recipes to fit your needs for each skill as you work through the course.

I assure you that safety is a top priority in the lessons and videos, and a lot of our initial time teaching knife skills and working at the stove is spent on safety. There’s no guarantee that accidents won’t happen, but walking carries some risk too, yet we all manage to do it and let our kids do it as well. 😉

I’ll let a happy member tell you in her own words about her experience with safety:

“My kids can safely work at the stove! THANK YOU! I have always been too afraid to go there and you gave me and my kiddos the right info we needed to do it safely.”

Not really. There’s a supply list with every single item you’ll need for all 27 lessons, and it’s barely over a page of large text and includes items like “butter knife” and “large mixing bowl.” Most homes will have 90% of what we use already, and we recommend resources to purchase if you don’t.

One necessary item for Intermediate and Advanced Level kids is a knife that fits your child’s hands. Any paring knife will do for the Intermediate Level, but the Advanced kids use a chef’s knife. You should have access to a sharp chef’s knife that’s no longer than 6 inches in length for best success with smaller hands (or something like a 4-inch Victorinox knife that can be used on many chef’s knife tasks). See our resources page for easy order links and ideas..

The course is completely at your own pace, any time you’d like to login.

You can request emails once a week for about 9 weeks as if the course was live and weekly, just a way to help keep you accountable and remind you that you have this awesome course at your disposal. You can stop and start those weekly reminders over anytime.

I'll also send reminders at key points of the year like school breaks to remind you in case you forget!

Every class includes :

5 Videos:

1. An introductory video for adults explaining the lesson's skill(s), how to present them in kid-friendly language, and some possible challenges you’ll want to be ready for.
2. An all-kid video for kids at any age or skill level to watch. Each of the all-kid videos introduces a skill that everyone can learn.
3. One video at each age/skill level, ranging in time from 3-22 minutes. If you have single level access, you’ll just have one of these. Otherwise, you’ll be able to watch all three or skip ones that are outside of your child(s) skill level or come back to them later.

There are also 4 “Foundations 101” video lessons to establish basic skills before embarking on the course, and if you’re a VIP member, there’s a bonus 4-video Hospitality Class too.

Single Level access includes the Adult Guide and All-Kid videos, plus the level you chose.

Written materials in each lesson:

1. A recap of what’s in the Adult Guide videos for those who would rather skim + planning helps for the All-Kid lesson and tips for teaching multiple age groups at once.
2. For those that like to plan out reeeeally thoroughly, there is an extensive lesson plan for each module level (usually 4-10 pages each). The day’s plan, supplies needed at a glance, extensions to practice the skill plus adaptations for allergies and more.
3. Printable memory tools to help the kids (and parents!) remember the important key phrases in each lesson. There are 1-4 “Flash Cards” for each lesson plus a “Daily Nugget” card with the factoid nutrition lesson for the day.
4. A 50-page recipe eBook in kid-friendly language and font size for all the recipes demonstrated in the videos and mentioned in the lesson plans. (VIP members also receive a second “Extension” recipe eBook with more recipes for kids to practice their cooking skills from class.)