Kitchen and Food

Kids love role playing! Their imaginative play often revolves around what they see adults do every day. Kids’ kitchen play sets are particularly popular toys as the children can imitate family and restaurant situations. Chefs, waiters, and parents are all roles for boys and girls in play kitchens. They imagine these roles and cook up exciting stories! But kitchen role play isn’t just fun for boys and girls. Playing with a wooden toy kitchen and assorted play food items also benefits your child’s development. Young children are always learning, exploring, and experimenting through play.

Creativity – Kitchen role play stretches children’s imagination to enrich creativity. Boys and girls concoct recipes and explore the pretend ingredients. They love to experiment with pretend utensils and appliances.

Communication – Kids express themselves with storytelling. You’ll hear them talking to each other or themselves as they enact the role as they play, enhancing language development. 

Social Skills – Kids’ kitchen play sets encourage group play to enhance social development. Discussions go on around who plays which role, what is on the menu, and how the scene will go. Kids work as a cooperative team, sharing, taking turns, and listening.

Organization – Children enjoy organizing their toy kitchens, deciding where each pretend food item and utensils should be stored.

Numeracy – To prepare meals in a toy kitchen, kids need to count how many spoons they need, weigh ingredients, or set an oven timer. All help their math learning as they play.

Food Choices – Promoting healthy foods like fruit and vegetables helps children make positive food choices. They imagine the pretend food, often making it more likely they will eat those food items in real life, too.

Independence – Kids with their own toy kitchen develop a sense of independence and self-confidence. They become responsible for keeping the toy kitchen clean, organized, and preparing meals. 

A toy kitchen set, utensils, and pretend food are an ideal combination to support learning and development for young children.