Kids cooking and eating takes into account many sensory experiences that tend to remain in memory. These sensory experiences include taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight. All of the senses are utilized when eating, including experience and memory. These combine to give children the sense of food being “yucky” or “mmm, mmm, good”.
You as a parent or caregiver can encourage and reinforce many of their sensory reactions by saying, “This apple sounds crunchy”,”Doesn’t the cinnamon smell spicy?” “This juice tastes very cold”. Help them use descriptive words such as wet, dry, crunchy, mushy, chewy, hot, cold, lumpy. You can ask: Can you taste the sugar? Isn’t this really hard and lumpy? You can also provide opportunities for them to be aware of the use of their senses.
