This program is for students in kindergarten through 5th grade and their parents.

Cooking with Kids (CWK), a school-based program, provides nutrition-education lessons that focus on the preparation and tasting of fresh foods from diverse cultures and encourages families to make healthy food choices.

Results from one randomized controlled trial indicated that 4th-grade students participating in CWK had increases in vegetable preference and cooking attitudes and self-efficacy from pretest to posttest compared to a control group. Boys with no prior cooking experience had the greatest increases in cooking attitudes and self-efficacy.

CWK, an experiential, nutrition-education program includes cooking and tasting lessons that feature fresh, local produce and recipes from diverse cultural backgrounds. Each cooking lesson focuses on teaching youth the following:

• Food preparation skills, including knife skills and safety;
• How to work together cooperatively;
• Preparation of healthy foods from different cultures; and
• Language and math knowledge.

Cooking Lessons are aligned with Common Core State Standards in Language Arts and Mathematics and National Health Education Standards for grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5. Each grade-range curriculum consists of several cooking lessons that culminate with students eating the foods. CWK has also developed tasting lessons that feature a variety of fruits and vegetables. Due to limited resources, some schools may hold only the fruit and vegetables tasting lessons.

Classroom learning is connected with school meals as foods prepared in the classroom are served for school lunches several times each month. Parents are invited to volunteer during cooking lessons, and recipes are sent home for families to prepare together.

In addition to the classroom curriculum, the program includes policy, systems, and environmental supports for healthy eating in schools, including gardening and Farm to School programming, and involvement in Local Food Policy Councils.

This program was founded in 1995 and is primarily implemented in two counties (Rio Arriba and Santa Fe) in New Mexico. Fifteen teaching kitchens have been created in schools, and the direct-education component of the program reaches 5,000 students and more than 1,000 family member volunteers at 18 schools in Northern New Mexico.

This program is generally facilitated by classroom teachers. In the randomized controlled trial that was conducted, the program was delivered by a food educator who received 30 hours of training and classroom teachers who were assisted by CWK staff who had had training in the program. Please use details in the Contact section for additional information on training.

Considerations for implementing this program include acquiring buy-in from schools, teachers, administration, and parents; gaining parental consent to ensure any food allergy situations are addressed; locating adequate space to allow classroom-sized groups of children to prepare and/or taste foods; finding time to implement the cooking and/or tasting lessons in an existing curriculum; and understanding food ingredients and equipment and materials for cooking and tasting will need to be obtained.

The Clearinghouse can help address these considerations. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

If you are interested in implementing CWK, the Clearinghouse is interested in helping you!  
Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

Implementation of the full curriculum includes 16 hours of cooking and tasting lessons throughout the school year. There is one 1-hour introductory class, five 1-hour fruit and vegetable tastings, and five 2-hour cooking classes.

Free start-up resources and tasting lessons and pay-per-download cooking lessons (i.e., $5 per lesson) are available at https://cookingwithkids.org/cooking-with-kids-store/ Other costs will vary depending on whether equipment, materials, and food are purchased or donated or both.

To move CWK to the Promising category on the Clearinghouse Continuum of Evidence, at least one evaluation should be performed demonstrating positive effects lasting at least six months from program completion.

The Clearinghouse can help you develop an evaluation plan to ensure the program components are meeting your goals. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

Contact the Clearinghouse with any questions regarding this program.  
Phone: 1-877-382-9185 Email: Clearinghouse@psu.edu

You may also contact CWK by mail P.O. Box 6113, Santa Fe, NM 87502-6113, phone 1-505-438-0098, email email@cookingwithkids.org, or visit https://cookingwithkids.org/contact/

https://cookingwithkids.org/, https://snapedtoolkit.org/interventions/programs/cooking-with-kids-cwk/, Cunningham-Sabo and Lohse (2014), and Walters and Stacey (2009).