• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Priss and Vinegar

  • Motherhood
  • Culture
  • Food
  • Style
  • Relationships
  • Essays

5.23.16

DO YOUR CHORES! 12 Kitchen Tasks Little Kids Can Totally Handle

Modern parenting gets some things so right. Positive discipline and treating children with respect? Brilliant! We should have been doing this all along!

But we’re totally blowing it in other areas, like chores. Somehow we’ve gone from the household being the family’s collective responsibility to grown-ups handling everything while our precious snowflakes play Minecraft on their iPads.

But they’re focusing on homework! School is so tiring! Their extracurricular calendars are already too busy! Well, chores have value, too, it turns out, and not just for exhausted modern parents who could really use a hand. Children who begin chores at ages 3 and 4 are more likely to have good relationships, to be academically and professionally successful, and to be self-sufficient compared with kids who didn’t have chores at all or started them as teens. Word.

With this in mind (and because involving kids in the kitchen is sort of a personal mission) here are 12 ways your little (yes, LITTLE) kids can start helping in the kitchen right now:

shelling fresh peas

  1. So, you can either frantically shell peas during naptime or the post-work/pre-dinner rush, or you can let your kids handle them and call it a fine motor development activity. Your call.

parkerhouse rolls

2. The Pioneer Woman‘s Parkerhouse Rolls have become a Thanksgiving tradition. That’s a big pot and a little kid, but look at my four year-old stirring dough like a boss.

baking parkerhouse rolls
3. Dipping dough in melted butter and folding it on the pan is a terrific job for tiny hands, too. (And sometimes they’re just not feeling it. He’s two, so whatever, dude!)

juicing citrus

4. Squeezing citrus for fresh juice, marinades, salad dressings, or, uh, blood orange margaritas.

hummus

5. Our favorite Hummus recipe requires skinning the garbanzo beans, which takes FOREVER unless you make your kids do it for you. And they will — happily! — because it’s slimy and tactile and surprisingly satisfying.

prepping roasted vegetables

6. A tiny spatula or pastry brush is perfect for “painting” olive oil on veggies before roasting.

diy pizza night

7. DIY pizza night is my go-to for afternoon playdates because it’s both an activity and a meal. Chris Bianco’s fresh pizza dough recipe is excellent if you’re feeling motivated, or pick up some Pizza Politana dough and sauce in your next Good Eggs order.

muffin topping

8. Tiny hands are just the right size for sprinkling streusel topping on muffins.

making muffins

9. Washing and drying produce is a simple task for just about any age.

muffin gift basket
10.  Gifting homemade treats to friends and neighbors teaches a wonderful lesson about generosity. (And it was my mom’s secret weapon to staying healthy even though she loved baking cookies.)

making chocolate chip cookies

11. Being trusted with grown-up tasks like working the controls on the KitchenAid Mixer makes my kids feel like badass superheroes.

making vegetable soup

12. Ditto for the Vitamix blender. Just establish safety ground rules & be a broken record about them. (I also keep my scariest kitchen gadgets unplugged & stored out of sight.)

PS, this chart of age-appropriate chores for children is really terrific. Like, print-it-out-and-tape-it-inside-a-cupboard-for-reference terrific.

These Might Also Be Your Jam...

  • Feeding Your Family on the Fly, Part 2: Refrigerator StaplesFeeding Your Family on the Fly, Part 2: Refrigerator Staples
  • A Realistic Menu Plan For Very Busy FamiliesA Realistic Menu Plan For Very Busy Families
  • {Weekend Recap} Plums, Projects & A Perfectly Effortless Brunch{Weekend Recap} Plums, Projects & A Perfectly Effortless Brunch
(Visited 1 times, 70 visits today)

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Culture, Food, Motherhood

Back to Home Page
« Everybody In The Pool! // Family Swim Edit
Charlotte’s Favorite Outfit »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy G. says

    7.27.16 at 3:10 pm

    Have toddler, will put to work. These are great! : )

    • Heather says

      7.27.16 at 9:57 pm

      Thank you! Working on the next piece in this series covering household chores. Guess I should start paying out allowances?!

  2. Laurie, Ellie & Alice says

    5.24.16 at 9:19 am

    Love these ideas! Can we please have your hummus recipe?

    • Heather says

      5.24.16 at 9:22 am

      Of course! Here it is: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017734-zahavs-hummus-tehina (We’d be delighted to have you all over for a hummus-making playdate, too. This recipe makes a massive quantity we could happily share!)

Trackbacks

  1. P&V RECIPE // Weeknight Halibut Ceviche - Priss and Vinegar says:
    7.27.16 at 3:05 pm

    […] this whenever you have the time and preferably when child labor is available. (Squeezing citrus is a primo kitchen chore for minis.) 2 cups of juice is ideal. Keep […]

  2. 18 Ways To Cure Your Kids' Late Afternoon Bad Vibes - Priss and Vinegar says:
    6.15.16 at 12:08 pm

    […] in the kitchen anyway (and you guys know I’m obsessed with this), now is the perfect opportunity to Involve Your Kids in Some Dinner Prep. Distract them with a […]

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Hi! I'm Heather.


ABOUT // MANIFESTO

You guys, there’s a Priss & Vinegar Newsletter!

Sign up to receive it on the regular.

  1. Does pale gray-ish count as a color? (Don't…
  2. Five Girly-Girl Children’s Books That…
  3. The War Against Perfect Moms
  4. {Life in a Snippet} Silhouette Art
  5. Aaaaand We're Back…
 

Food

The Coziest Fall Recipes You 100% Need in Your Life

Motherhood

When You See A Child Alone In A Car

Snapchat

Follow prissandvinegar on Snapchat!

Footer

Priss & Vinegar

on
Instagram

Priss & Vinegar © 2021Built with and Genesis Framework by Bellano Web Studio

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.