Wall Street Journal Recommended Cooking Class for Kids
Kids Cook Real Food’s Independent Training Program gives young cooks confidence in the kitchen!
I feel your pain, busy mamas!
We are overwhelmed!
How can a parent with multiple kids (or hey, even one!) answer schoolwork questions, feed everyone 5x/day, keep things halfway clean AND maybe even get some work done yourself?
Whether you’re homeschooling or sending kids off to school, your free time is limited. And that’s when no one is sick, the dog doesn’t need to go to the vet, and you don’t have piles of work scraping the ceiling!
Who has time for anything ELSE?
When baby #4 was born, I was trying to run a business online, and we made the decision that my husband would quit his corporate job and come home to start his own business. The pressure of “getting work done” increased, and I realized that between my time at the computer supporting my family and my time at the cutting board actually feeding them —
I was hardly spending any time with my kids. What did they look like?
I doubled down on teaching them to cook, both to build their skills for adulthood and to share responsibility in the present. I enjoyed spending time with them WHILE we were doing something productive!
Eventually, they could cook on their own, and my two older kids started taking one dinner a week.
Breakfast became largely independent, without a parent in sight.
Fast forward a handful of years (kids grow up fast!), and my 3 older kids are EACH making a dinner a week. That’s only 4 left for me!
My daughter plans all our breakfasts because she wakes up first, and the grown-ups barely have to do anything for that meal.
But don’t get me wrong – I’m NOT a naturally organized person!
It’s been a long road figuring out how to create routines that allowed me to get a breather here and there while my kids built vital life skills.
If your family isn’t quiiiiiite there yet…
Here’s a secret that will change everything:
Your kids are more capable in the kitchen than you think.
And you’re not stuck doing everything yourself just because you haven’t (yet) trained your kids in household responsibilities.
I just asked my 12-year-old daughter to set up dinner last night, and guess what? Even though she used to complain about cooking, because of this course motivating her she made pasta, heated sauce and homemade meatballs, and cut and steamed broccoli effortlessly – and I squeezed in some exercise between work and dinner!
The Kids Cook Real Food Independent Training Program for kids ages 8 & up.
With Kids Cook Solo, your kids build life skills on their own, and you enjoy the healthy food.
The same professionally produced short videos that are in the Original eCourse will walk your older child through 14 basic skills in the kitchen.
All the material is in a special kid-friendly online dashboard, no distractions, and your family sets the pace.
That’s it!
Make sure groceries are in the house, and your child will demonstrate their new skill. You give the OK to move forward.
Any child who can read and be trusted to follow directions on their own is a perfect fit for Kids Cook Solo, especially if they have any interest in cooking themselves.
NO prior experience necessary! (We do the training, even on the basics.)
You don’t need “one more thing” on a screen for your kids to do — with a ton of prep time from parents.
You need help!
I’m listening, mamas, and I created a brand new way to help you get a little time back in the kitchen with almost no investment of your time.
During each self-paced lesson, your child will be instructed to teach you what they’ve learned about safety or clean-up.
You can mark off each step on the parent checklist and then give permission for the actual cooking/baking to begin.
Your child learns better because they’re teaching you.
You feel confident that they’ll be safe (and not messy).
Imagine: You close your computer at 5:00 and, ta da!
Part of dinner is already started.
Or a snack is prepared for tomorrow.
Your child will build such confidence in the kitchen after just a few lessons that you’ll have no problem assigning a “snack master” on a regular basis — and you can actually get some uninterrupted work done!
After our virtual summer camp in 2020, I got an email from 13-year-old Rachel Kelly.
I’m 13 and have never really cooked before. A friend told me about your virtual summer camp, and I decided to test it out. I love it!
I’ve learned so much along the way! My little brother (age 10) helped out some days, too. We both have gained an incredible amount of skill through this program, and are now able to cook meals by ourselves!
I am confident in the kitchen now, and will continue to use the skills I learned here for the rest of my life! Thank you!
She sent a picture of the dinner she customized that night, and I was hooked. I had to know more.
How did she do it on her own?
That first summer camp was intended to connect families together during quarantine, yet somehow she didn’t need any adult help.
I asked some questions, and she clarified:
All of the recipes were clearly designed for kids, so it was really easy to follow along and learn the skills along the way.
I also did the lessons on Zoom with a friend, so if we had any problems we worked through them together.
Wow!
I wanted to give this gift to more kids and families, especially as school started gearing up with so many going virtual and trying homeschool for the first time.
I organized the same videos in the Original eCourse that Rachel benefited from, put stovetop safety earlier in the sequence, and took out sharp knives because they make parents nervous. 😉
I rewrote every lesson plan to speak directly to the kids.
No offense, parents, but we’re leaving you out here.
Then I added a few new lessons on presentation skills to help your kids gain yet another valuable life skill.
With just 10-20 minutes on a computer per lesson, your kids will spend time working with their hands and being creative, and you’ll get to eat delicious, nourishing food.
Tonya K. said that there’s nowhere other than Kids Cook Real Food that her kids can build this amount of critical thinking, independence, and creativity.
Her 10-year-old saved them about $60 the other night because both parents were exhausted by Friday and were planning to go out to eat in California. Her daughter offered to cook, went to the fridge to see what they had, and said, “I could make quesadillas.”
The family ate at home.
Tonya says it’s amazing, because, “I have another partner now in brainstorming what to make for dinner.”
Want to see what skills YOUR kids will build in Kids Cook Solo?
I’m getting lots of help with meals now!
If it were not for my kids, we wouldn’t have been able to function when I had 9 months of bedrest and my husband had 2 surgeries.
Sara’s kids, ages 8 and 12, made tacos, spaghetti, fruit salad, egg sandwiches, fresh cut vegetables and more. Like me, she was grateful they had already been trained with Kids Cook Real Food!
Pacience (purple shirt) started our courses when she was 9. Now at age 12, her mom just reported that she’s still motivated to cook and even initiates ideas, looking up her own recipe and cooking start to finish without a parent.
Even kids who aren’t motivated to cook end up loving the feeling of having authentic skills, and it starts with just one lesson, one nudge. They’ll actually do it once they feel how awesome it is to feed other people!
Total value = $99.90… current price: $49.95!
I’m not going to pile on 72 bonuses with inflated price tags, but there are some real life bonuses to learning to cook.
Your kids will also learn:
This may as well be job training!
84% of nearly 1,000 families said they valued intentional time to teach cooking skills intentionally to their kids (and other life skill responsibilities).
If you have those same good intentions but haven’t managed to make it happen, NO guilt! You just didn’t have the right program to help you out.
Now you do.
Compare to in-person instruction at $10-30 per class ($90-270 value) or $99.90 online!
You get a full 14 days to make sure the program is a good fit for your child(ren) and family.
If it’s not, just a quick email and your money is back, no worries.
Your independently trained young cooks need to be able to read well and follow directions on the screen, since the whole point is that they don’t need you. All the skills taught are appropriate for kids in about 3rd grade and beyond, EVEN if they have zero experience in the kitchen. If your child isn’t quite strong enough to use the oven, they may need a tiny bit more help, but they’ll have it pre-heated for you. High school students would also build skills well with this course, although they’d have to be ok with the tone of voice in the videos speaking to younger children.
You bet! Any of your children (and friends with whom you might be creating a “learning pod” with) are welcome to use the videos at their own pace, as long as they’re all in the same household while watching the videos. Your kids can even have their own “child account” so they are logged in as themselves under you as the “parent account.”
You are not permitted to share your login with other families, but you may certainly invite them to cook with your kids if they have their own membership to the program.
Kids Cook Solo is designed for minimal parent involvement. I'll do all the explaining and demonstrating. Your kids will be making recipes right away and have skills to look up their own healthy snacks on Pinterest by class #3!
You’re welcome to teach as many children as you like with our user license, and you could screen share video lessons during a virtual learning session. However, if you’re teaching, it would make more sense to buy the VIP membership to the full eCourse, keep the lessons forever, and teach as many children of all ages as you wish. OR we have a new group discount with 3-month memberships for groups of 5 or more families. Details here.
You don’t have to. The Kids Cook Solo Training program does all the thinking for you and your child, just plug and play.
You’ll have access to the entire program right away. Your child (and you) will decide how quickly to move. One lesson per week is a great rhythm, and you’ll finish in 2 months at that pace. One lesson a day for two weeks would also be possible - the world is yours on this question!
Lessons will take about 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete, depending on how comfortable your child already is in the kitchen and the complexity of the skill for the day.
Your Kids Cook Solo Independent Training program will last for a full 12 months, plenty of time to complete all the lessons, even if you only tackle one per month. You can always upgrade to our VIP level, triple the number of videos your child will have access to, and that membership never expires.
Research is showing that the number of hours on a screen isn’t an important factor in the effect on children’s brain development, mental or physical health. The way we use our screens is what matters. In the Kimball house, we teach our kids to balance screen use between creative, consumptive, and social.
Learning to cook can be all three, depending on how your child learns, and although the on-screen time is technically “consuming,” the videos are only 5-20 minutes long and most of the lesson time will be off the screen, in the kitchen. This is 100% productive screen time with benefits for the whole family.
You bet. Once you’re a member, you can login from any device, anywhere, to view the course materials.
I assure you that safety is a top priority in the lessons and videos, and you’ll see quickly how thoroughly we train the children when your child goes through the stove safety checklist during the “Teach Your Adult” portion of the program. You’ll always be asked for permission before your child turns on the stove or oven, and no knives are included in the Independent Training classes at all.
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. 😉 Our process of walking kids through the safety steps with the stove or oven OFF is nothing short of magical.
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.”
Many students who are afraid of hot stoves/ovens and who have zero experience in the kitchen end up working with complete confidence after our training.
We find that even the kids who aren't motivated to learn to cook at all end up loving the feeling of authentic work, of feeding others. If you can get them to do just one lesson, they'll be hooked.
And if they're not, that's exactly what our happiness guarantee is for. I predict you'll be happy because your kids are learning to cook and building crazy amounts of confidence in the kitchen, but if you must be happy because you have no risk, then I'm happy too!
Not really. There’s a supply list with every single item you’ll need for all 9 lessons, and it’s mostly basic 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.
Our goal at Kids Cook Real Food is to integrate into your normal family life, so groceries are fairly basic items that most families have on hand or purchase regularly anyway. You shouldn’t need special space in your grocery budget for the Kids Cook Solo Independent Training program, because your kids will just be making food the whole family will eat anyway.
If you don’t buy spices in bulk, that may be one change you’ll want to make once your new young cook learns to make homemade taco seasoning and ranch mix.
Oh, my friend. Delicious ones. And even more delicious because your children are making them independently.
There are simple recipes like pancakes and homemade ranch dressing and more complicated things like homemade tortillas and white sauce to go with steamed veggies.
The most important part though? They’re all 100% real food, from scratch, no processed stuff. We teach kids to cook with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, eggs, cheese, meat (in one class) - the basics.
At Kids Cook Real Food, we focus on skills, not recipes, so ultimately your older kids will build competencies that can extrapolate into 100s of snacks, side dishes, salads, and apps.
They will be making some recipes during the lessons, however - it's possible that in 9 weeks, your child had all this in their repertoire!
But ultimately their newfound skills will save you precious meal prep minutes every single day AND they’ll have the confidence to be in the kitchen and get breakfast, lunch, and snacks for themselves and little brothers and sisters.
Here are the recipes we'll use to teach the skills:
Kids Cook Real Food has always been very allergy-friendly, and we provide 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. Every lesson provides one allergy-friendly substitution IF common allergens are used in the recipe we demonstrate, and kids are encouraged to try their own family favorites as well.
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:
If you have other allergies, feel free to email a question to support@kidscookrealfood.com and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
You’ll have 14 days to experiment with the lessons to make sure they’re a perfect fit for your family.
Because access is only 12 months, videos are not available for download. Besides that, the point is that the kids are on a page that gives them step by step instructions, so the videos really need to be inline so they don’t have to click around anywhere.
You are able to download recipe PDFs so you can keep those new-family-favorite dishes forever!
Nope! All our VIP members already have access to the new Kids Cook Solo Independent Training program. Just look on your member dashboard!
We have a full cooking eCourse designed for families to work on together, and since these videos are already part of that course, our Kids Cook Solo kids will get a deep discount on the VIP level (access doesn’t expire). Those lessons incorporate a lot of knife skills, truly unlocking the produce section for your children.
My team and I are here for you and answer emails within about 6 hours on weekdays. Shoot us a note at support@kidscookrealfood.com.
