Independent Meals & Wall Menus
Since meals come around all day everyday, here are a few things that have helped our kids be a little more independent when it comes to the kitchen.
Including Them in Planning and Prepping
Including our kids in menu planning and meal prepping has been something we’ve done for a long time. They learn so much just be observing and mimicking. In the book, The Parenting Breakthrough, Boyack talks about teaching kids kitchen and life skills beginning around the age of 2.5-3. I remember our twins (now 9) started making their own sandwiches at age 3 and now my youngest is doing the same. Of course, I still make a lot of the food around here, but it’s just more about helping them develop something they can do if and when they want to.
In the early years, kids thrive off simple independent opportunities. It helps them build confidence! I’ve worked in two different all-day schools where the policy was for the teacher/chef to prep everything for the kids. Then, I spent some time in a Montessori school where there they have a cute little self-serving snack station in the pre-school area. There was definitely a difference in what the kids were capable of doing. So I think I realized early on how eager little kids can be given the right opportunity and environment and that’s really set the tone for our home as well.
For food prep, kids often love to wash food and help pour or stir. We have child-safe knives that the kids start using at about 3 with breads or soft fruits to practice cutting. As kids get older we introduce the microwave, stove, and oven.
If you need a little direction on what life skills to teach at what age and how to do it, The Parenting Breakthrough is an excellent book for this. It’s a little older book, but it’s one of those books that’s been a close blueprint to my parenting/teaching philosophies and I still constantly reference it.
Wall Menus
I save all my creative juices for other areas of my life so don’t be too surprised with how simple we keep meals over here! I first shared about our wall menus in response to a Q&A I did on IG and I was surprised how many people wanted a copy of them. I thought I’d need to jazz them up a bit, but, after talking to a handful of you, that’s what everyone liked - just something simple.
These menus are designed to be for my kids to take a little ownership in feeding themselves and have a say what’s on the menu for the week. With the exception of 1-2 items, everything on the breakfast and lunch lists, my older twins (9) can make without me. I keep the menus posted on a wall in my kitchen next to a visual of a healthy plate so my kids can remember how to put together a better balanced meal. After all, we are homeschoolers — always integrating learning, right? For the kids, it’s just so natural to always pick sugary snacks (even fruit) so I really try to emphasize to pair carbs with proteins. Apple + string cheese. Strawberries + greek yogurt. Protein shakes/granola bars. Then we use the 9 inch plate guideline for meals and I just googled and pulled off an image real quick that shows how to divide up the plate. I got the image pictured from this nutrition blog. I’ve used a few different ones over the years. I like ones that show 1/2 of the plate fruits & veggies, 1/4 protein, and 1/4 grains. There are a lot of images that just have words, but I like them with some pictures so my younger kids can see begin to see what is a protein/grain.
I uploaded our menu files to a google drive to share for free. Once you access the files, you’ll need to download them and then you can edit them on your computer. Doing this may change the format a bit, but it’ll give you a starting point to jump off of. And a handful of items on these lists will be catered to our family so it isn’t a comprehensive list. You’ll just want to customize it for your family. If you haven’t done something like this before, you may even want to break it down by protein, grains, fruits & veggies even more than I have.
For my younger boys (5 & 3) we’ll read off the lists so they can also have ideas for what they want to make or eat. Ideally, there would be pictures for them — but I am not that on top of it :) The lists also serve as a quick go-to for me when I am deciding what to make for a simple breakfast or lunch. On nights we have quick dinners or I am not around, it isn’t uncommon for the kids to pull an idea off the breakfast/lunch menu for dinner. But, for our regular dinners, I have the go-to dinner list on items I know at least most of my children will eat. So, they can help choose items when I meal plan for the week. I do add in some other recipes for all our meals that we have in cookbooks or I saved online so, like I said, this isn’t a comprehensive list — just more ideas for the kids. For lunches, we do a lot of leftover dinners - which are usually healthier anyway and my go-to is a charcuterie board of finger foods.
One other thing I like to do every month or so is sit down with all my kids at the computer and we browse new recipes and they each pick one new meal to try. Our most recent go-to for this is Super Healthy Kids because it’s kid-friendly and have fantastic visuals. BTW veggies are definitely the hardest food for my kids to eat (no surprise) but they’ve liked a few of the veggie smoothies so give those a try! Anyway, I print the recipes the kids choose and then we rotate trying them every few weeks. Sometimes the kids love them, sometimes they don’t. Most the meals usually take a bit more time so we always plan to do these on days we don’t have a lot going on. Sometimes all the kids help prep and sometimes just the person who chooses the recipe will help prep depending on the recipe. We store the meal keepers in my cookbook binder (just printed recipes) and when we need to mix things up, we’ll browse through the recipes and make them again.
Creating a Child-Friendly Environment
One last tip — if you don’t already, I would highly recommend keeping your kid’s bowls, plates, utensils somewhere children can easily reach and maintain. We keep ours in a bottom drawer right by the dishwasher. This way they’re always available for easy access when the kids want to make their own food. And, also easy for them to help unload the dishwasher and put away. A few years ago we ditched all the kid’s colored plastic plates and invested in a Corelle set of plates and bowls. I have 2 sets of both and that have been perfect with 4 kids. They’ve been a game changer around here! No fighting over colors and they’re a lot healthier to eat on since you’re not warming up the plastics to wash and reheat foods. They are also break resistant — I don’t think we’ve ever broken one. We also have 2 sets of these child-size utensils - which include the perfect size dull knives to help kids learn how to cut up their own food. And, they actually work and pick up food (versus kids plastic forks that don’t work very well). These are the utensil organizers we use. We keep the drawer really simple so it’s not overwhelming for them to clean or pick out what they need. We also use the one cup rule with stainless steel cups. Each child has one colored cup to keep water in during the day (and I have a big water bottle). We wash them all at night and unload the dishes in the morning so they’re ready to go for the next day and it really helps keep down on the amount of dishes we go through. All of these little things just support a more child-friendly environment.
Keep it simple and enjoy!
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