Equipment (5-7 Years)

Activity 1- There are lots of different pieces of equipment used in cooking.

There will be an opportunity for tasting in this session. Ensure you have checked for any sensitivities to ingredients. You could send home the Ingredient check letter if you do not already have this information from parents/carers.

Show children a variety of different equipment. Or use the Kitchen equipment cards or the Kitchen equipment presentation.

The equipment cards include:

• Knife, fork, spoon;
• Chopping board;
• Peeler;
• Grater;
• Mixing bowl;
• Cutters;
• Kitchen scissors;
• Weighing scales;
• Measuring spoons;
• Measuring jug;
• Mixing spoon;
• Vegetable knife.

Question the children:

• What is this piece of equipment called?
• What is it used for?

Demonstrate how some of the equipment is used by making a guacamole dip: 

• Halve avocado and lime – knife and chopping board;
• Squeeze the lime – juice squeezer;
• Combine ingredients – bowl and fork.

Show the children the Dips video and ask them to spot what equipment is needed to make the hummus dip and how it is used.

You could allow the children to taste some of the dip. Refer to the Tasting guide.

Use the Kitchen equipment presentation to show the children how to match items to their names and functions.

Sort the children into groups of two or three and give them the What is it? cards, cut out (you may wish to laminate them as well). The children need to match the pictures of the equipment to their names and functions.  Tell the children that this is the same task that was demonstrated on the presentation. For younger or less able children you could omit the function cards. 

The cards could also be used to play a pairs activity.  This is done by taking the pictures of the equipment and their names, shuffling them, and spreading them out face down.  Children then take it in turns to choose two cards and see if they go together.  If they do not, they must replace the cards but if they do, they win the cards.

Extension: give children the What’s that? worksheet.  They need to identify what the equipment is and then draw in the rest of it.

Activity 2 - Some equipment has a special job e.g. colander, peeler.

Organise the classroom so that you can demonstrate to the children how to use some equipment.  Look at the Setting up a cooking guide for tips on how to organise your classroom. 

Demonstrate the following using best practise, see Food skills guide:

• Sieve;
• Cutter;
• Scissors;
• Peeler;
• Grater;
• Juice squeezer.

Discuss each skill.  Question children:

• Have you seen this equipment/skill used before?
• Do you know what can be made using this skill and equipment?
• How can we make sure this is done safely?

Show some of the videos which show these skills and being used in recipes.Get children to complete the Using equipment worksheet.  The worksheet requires them to draw hands using the equipment, food being prepared and also asks children to indicate any safety considerations.

Activity 3 - It is important to be able to use a range of simple equipment.

Organise the classroom and the children for food work.  See the Setting up a cooking session guide for tips on how to organise your classroom.

Explain to the children that they will be preparing some playtime snacks using some of the equipment they have learnt about previously, and some new equipment. 

Demonstrate, using best practise, the skills you will be asking the children to use. You can use some or all of the activities from the following list: [Consider instead the children moving around work stations doing a different bit of food prep which is then assembled to create a salad…]

• Grapes [choking…] being washed in a colander, rest the colander on a plate after to prevent dipping;
• a carrot being peeled with a peeler;
• an orange being juiced with a juice squeezer;
• cheese being grated with a stand up grater (this can then be arranged on crackers);
• kitchen scissors being used to cut pepper slices (deseed and half the pepper lengthways, first).
• kitchen scissors, a bowl and spoons to make a cheese dip.

Note: these activities deliberately do not include knife cutting skills as these will be taught in following sessions.

You could also show the skills videos Peeling and Grating for reinforcement. 

As you show each skill, talk to the children about what you are doing and highlight the safety points. Demonstrate how to present the food well, e.g. in an attractive arrangement.

Plan this task so that each child will be able to experience working with at least two pieces of equipment.

When the activity is complete, arrange what has been made on one table and ask some of the children to talk about what they did and name the equipment they used.

Allow the children to eat what they have prepared.  Remember to instruct the children on how to do this hygienically. Use the Setting up a cooking session guide.

Note: children will look at food hygiene in more detail in the following lesson. For the food work in this session, instruct the children on what they must do, save discussion for following lessons.

Plenary

Revise the names and uses for different piece of equipment.  Use some of the activities suggested in the Cooking plenary, but substitute the ingredients for the equipment.

Further activities

Create a wall display of ingredients and equipment to remind the children what different equipment is called and how it is used.

Reviewed August 2024