Cooking Skills by Age

Schools are out this week for spring break, why not include the children in helping prepare meals. Match your childrens' skill levels with various tasks for safe kitchen fun. Here are some suggestions from kraftfoods.com for age-specific tasks:

3-Year Olds

• Wash fruits and vegetables


• Stir ingredients in a bowl


• Tear lettuce


• Pour liquids

4-Year Olds

• Grease pans


• Open packages


• Peel oranges or hard-cooked eggs


• Snip fresh herbs with dull scissors


• Mash bananas with a fork

5-to 6-Year Olds

• Measure ingredients


• Cut soft foods with a blunt knife


• Set the table


• Garnish food

7-to 8-Year Olds

• Help plan the meal


• Roll and shape cookies


• Beat ingredients with a whisk


• Find ingredients in a cabinet or spice rack


• Make a salad

9- to 12-Year Olds

• Open cans


• Use a microwave oven


• Prepare simple recipes with few ingredients


• Use an oven (with supervision)


• Use a knife (with supervision)


• Shred cheese and vegetables

REMINDER: MAKE SURE CHILDREN WASH THEIR HANDS BEFORE/AFTER FOOD PREPARATION/SERVICE. THESE ARE JUST SUGGESTIONS, NOT ALL CHILDREN PERFORM AT THE SAME SKILL LEVEL!

Fun Spring Time Snack

Let your kids play with their food for a change.

They'll love decorating juicy red apples with pretzels for antennas, raisins for spots and eyes and peanut butter for wings, then snacking on them once they work up an appetite.
Ingredients
2 red apples
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon peanut butter
8 thin pretzel sticks

Cooking Instructions
Slice apples in half from top to bottom, and scoop out the cores using a knife or melon baller. If you have an apple corer, core them first, then slice. Place each apple half flat side down on a small plate.
Dab peanut butter on to the back of the 'lady bug', then stick raisins onto the dabs for spots. Use this method to make eyes too. Stick one end of each pretzel stick into a raisin, then press the other end into the apples to make antennae.

Adding Menus To Child Watch

Adding your 5 cycle menu to Child Watch is VERY easy. Here are the steps to adding you menus:

1. From the CACFP menu - select "Menus & Attendance"
2. Click on the menu icon for the first day of the month
3. Make sure you check the box "Archive this Menu"
4. For the name of the menu "Mon Wk 1" works for me because you can see the whole thing on the calendar
5. Now just go through and add each individual item - make sure that you use the correct components
6. When you have entered all of the menu items, click the yellow schedule button at the top of the page
7. Do the same thing for all 25 or 35 days depending on your days of operation.
8. Now for the next month all you need to do is select the appropriate daily menu from your archived menus.

If you have any questions about adding menus to Child Watch you can call me at 317-636-5727 et. 249.

Submitting Your Claim

Once you have all your attendance records and menus completed for the month, click the "Submit CLaim" button on the CACFP Menu.

This "locks" your claim, no further changes can be made to your claim online. If you discover an error, you will need to call us to make any changes.