These cool tools help kids explore cooking and kitchen play.
- By
- Parker Barry
Cool tools can make kitchen play irresistible to kids. Adding just a few new items to your kitchen that are right-sized for kids’ small hands and well-designed for developing coordination can make a huge difference in kitchen play safety and success.
When buying kid-friendly kitchen supplies, look for a few key features such as handles (especially two handles), non-slip bottoms, mini versions of standard tools, encased chopping blades and items designed for safety and ease-of-use.
Here are 20 such items that can help you create a fun, kid-friendly, kitchen:
- Kid-size fruit and veggie scrubbing brush
- Mini cookie cutters for shaping bread, cheese or fruit
- Small, easy-open containers for kid-size portions of nut butters, juices, milks, cheese, dried fruit and anything else your kids eat (which you transfer from larger containers to these manageable-size containers)
- Small serving tray with handles
- Kid-size butter spreader, which can be used to cut soft foods
- Two-handled apple slicer
- Two-handled banana slicer
- Cutting board with suction cups
- Rolling pin
- Easy-to-hold measuring cups and spoons
- Old-fashioned coffee grinder
- Kid-friendly vegetable peeler
- Interchangeable mini-grater and juicer with handle
- Self-enclosed nut and onion chopper
- Old-fashioned apple peeler and corer
- Countertop compost bucket with lid
- Kid-size apron
- Hand broom and dustpan
- Kid-size mop
- A safe step stool or (for a splurge) The Learning Tower
You probably noticed that some of the items listed are ones that help kids with cleanup after they’re done with food prep. This keeps mess at a minimum, which keeps us parents just as enthusiastic about kitchen play as our kids are!