Baking With Kids
The Secret To Boosting School Skills In The Kitchen!

Baking with kids can feel messy but it is a goldmine for learning! As an occupational therapist and homeschool mom, I have learned to look past the chaos and recognize the incredible benefits of baking in early childhood (ie ages 3 – 8). In this post, I’ll show you 5 ways that baking helps a child’s development, from bilateral and eye-hand coordination skills to hand strengthening, planning and problem-solving, and real-life math. 

Rather than giving you recipes, I will show you simple, age-appropriate tasks that your child can do, to turn any recipe into a skill-building session. So grab your favorite family recipe and get your child involved today! (Free printable cookie recipes at the end if you want an easy start!)

For your convenience, I may link to products that are similar to the ones I use. I may receive a small commission if you purchase a product through my links, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my site!

Key Takeaways For Busy Parents:

  • Give your child tasks that use both hands together, like rolling dough or sifting flour, to build the coordination needed for scissor cutting and tying shoelaces.
  • Strengthen your child's hands for handwriting by letting them knead dough, squeeze icing bags, and rub ingredients together.
  • Use any recipe for real-life math by having your child count and measure ingredients. Following steps in order helps with sequencing.
  • Improve your child's eye-hand coordination by letting them pour and spoon out ingredients. 
  1. Develop bilateral coordination skills 
  2. Boost eye-hand coordination skills
  3. Strengthen the hand muscles
  4. Practice spatial perception and planning skills
  5. Practice math skills
5 reasons to bake with your kids at Christmas time!

1) Develop Bilateral Coordination While Baking

Baking can give your child lots of opportunity to develop and use both hands together in a coordinated way. Here are some ways you can incorporate this into your baking activity: 

  • Rolling balls of dough, rolling out dough with a rolling pin#Ad, and flattening dough with the hands
  • Holding a bowl steady with one hand while the other hand stirs the batter
  • Sifting flour into a large bowl enables a child to use one hand to hold the sieve while the other hand knocks the flour out
rolling balls of cookie dough is good for kids bilateral coordinationRolling balls of dough
using a rolling pin is good for kids bilateral coordinationUsing a rolling pin
flattening dough helps kids bilateral coordination skillsFlattening a tray of dough
sifting flour helps kids bilateral coordination skillsSifting flour

Developing good bilateral coordination skills can help children master the skills of tying shoelaces and cutting with scissors, among other skills.

Pro Tip:

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2) Boost Eye-Hand Coordination While Baking

  • Pouring ingredients into bowls and jugs, and spooning batter into tins are all good ways for kids to practice their eye-hand coordination.
  • Squeezing icing onto cookies and decorating cupcakes also use eye-hand coordination.
pouring ingredients with a jug helps with eye-hand coordinationPouring ingredients with a jug
spooning batter into cups helps with eye-hand coordinationSpooning batter into muffin cups

Pro Tip:

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3) Develop Hand Strength While Baking

Baking with kids can give them lots of opportunities to strengthen their hand and finger muscles. 

Have you ever made English scones from scratch (also called "biscuits" in the USA)?

  • Rubbing the dry ingredients into the butter/shortening is a great exercise for strengthening hand muscles.
rubbing ingredients together is a good hand exercise for kidsRubbing ingredients together to make scones.
  • In the pics below, you can see how squeezing dough into balls gets the hands working.
  • Even sprinkling cheese on pizza bases can give the fingers a workout!

When both hands are working together, it also helps develop bilateral coordination skills.

squeezing cookie dough helps strengthen hand musclesSqueezing cookie dough
sprinkling grated cheese is a great hand exercise for kidsSprinkling grated cheese

Pro Tip: Homemade Icing/Frosting Bags can let your child ice/frost their own cookies with a minimum of mess

  • Make a basic glaze icing from icing sugar and a tiny bit of water - just enough to make a smooth paste without being too runny.
  • Place one or 2 tablespoons into the corner of a small plastic baggie, tie a knot in the bag and then snip off the corner.
  • Use one hand, both hands or even the tripod fingers to squeeze the bag to ice/frost the cookies.
squeezing a cake frosting/icing bag to work on hand strengthSqueezing icing/frosting bag - two hands
squeezing a cake frosting/icing bag to work on hand strengthSqueezing icing/frosting bag - tripod fingers

Pro Tip:

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4) Practice Planning and Spatial Reasoning Skills

Following instructions is an important part of formal learning.

  • Use pictures or written recipes when baking with kids so they can follow steps and practice sequencing.
  • Following verbal instructions can boost your child's listening skills. 
  • Help your child organize him/herself in the kitchen by modeling how to set out ingredients and utensils before starting, and cleaning up as you go.

Spatial reasoning skills can be used when your child has to cut out cookies.

  • Challenge your child to get as many cookies as possible from single roll-out of the dough - this will challenge your child to place the cookie cutters in a way that minimizes waste.
working on spatial perception with cookie cutters and doughSpatial reasoning with cookie dough

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5) Practice Math While Baking With Kids!

Letting your kids bake with you will help them learn about measuring and about number concepts in real life.

kids counting eggs in the kitchen - build skillsCounting Eggs
kids measuring liquids in the kitchenMeasuring liquids
  • Let them count out eggs and cups of ingredients.
  • Let them measure liquids with measuring cups and measuring spoons#Ad, and just expose them to the concepts of math in real life.
  • You might even manage to get some skip counting done! I encourage my kids to practice their skip counting while the beater is running!

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Resources For Baking With Kids

Feeling inspired? If you don't already have some baking equipment at home, I have found some resources on Amazon to help you on your way...


Checklist and Safety

Before You Start

  • Always wash hands before starting
  • Tie hair out of the way
  • Use an apron to protect clothing
  • Read the recipe together 
  • Collect all the ingredients and utensils before you start - use a sheet pan to keep ingredients together
  • Have the sink ready to establish a clean-as-you-go routine

Safety Considerations

This is not a comprehensive list, please use common sense to keep your child safe in the kitchen!

  • An adult should always put items in and out of the oven
  • An adult should always handle hot ingredients and pots
  • Choose child-friendly knives and always supervise your child when they are using one
  • Check the recipe for allergy considerations before starting
  • Use a damp cloth or a non-slip mat under bowls

My own kids started "helping" me in the kitchen when they were toddlers, and we have many fond memories that were created among the floury mess!

When you make baking with kids a part of your routine, you are creating a hands-on learning experience and developing skills that will stay with them for life! 

So, embrace the mess, celebrate the learning, and don't forget to scroll down and download my favorite, free skill-building cookie recipes today!

how baking activities can benefit kids

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Bonus: My Free Skill-Building Cookie Recipes!

I am sharing two of my family's favorite yummy cookie recipes - they give lots of opportunity to include some or all of the skills mentioned above.

Get Your OT Mom Free PrintableTM Cookie Recipes!

These are my two favorite cookie recipes that are easy for kids to make and build their skills. They come in a printable, accessible PDF.

Fill in this form to access your freebie right away! You also have the option of signing up for my newsletter through this form!

OT Mom's free cookie recipe downloadFree Recipe Download!

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