The benefits of learning cooking at young age

I teach my girl cooking (including reading recipes) when she was 6. I saw improvements in many ways including arithmatics, logical sense and most importantly becoming less "clumsy" - I mean able to control cutlery better, less spilling, breakages etc.

The significant benefits I observed are :-

• First and foremost, improvement in arithmatics. They can understand easily what is a teaspoon and a tablespoon without a blink of an eye. They have better understanding over fractions. They also get to learn how to weigh and understanding the value of like 100g is lesser than 300g; g is smaller unit than kg; measuring water we use ml and l etc. All these enhance their learning ability in school.
  

• Learn to follow instructions - They know what comes before or after. They will understand the reason why. For example, when we stir-fry, garlic and shallots will go first because we need the fragrance. Meat will be before vegetables because meat takes longer time to cook etc.

• Improve vocabulary - by reading recipes, they learn about various ingredients, the method of cooking - stir-fry, baking, deep-fry, steaming etc. They will not be confused between salt and sugar. They can differenciate a plain flour and a corn flour easily by touching its texture.

• Better logical and conceptual sense - They learn about function of each ingredient like shallot is for its fragrance, bread crumb is for its crunciness, corn flour is for its glueness etc. They know why the oil must go in first before we pour in eggs.  

• The final and most important of all, they can be your best helper when you need them. I experienced this a few occasions. When I fell sick (I was quite lucky that I always fell sick on the weekends...), by telling my daughter what to eat for dinner, she would roughly know what needed to be prepared. By the time she completed the preparation, I would have gotten sufficient rest by then and able to help her to cook, and still in time for dinner!