Are you buying gifts for any littles this year? My little guy isn’t quite old enough to help much in the kitchen, but cooking projects and food preparation work were some of my favorite things to watch the children work on when I was teaching in a Montessori school.
Helping in the kitchen is great for concentration and fine motor skills, and can also help kids get excited about eating different kinds of foods.
If you have a little one on your Christmas list, here are some fun kitchen tool ideas, perfect for tiny hands. These are generally appropriate for 3-5 year olds, but of course watch your own child for readiness.
Wavy Chopper This lets children as young as three help chop things like carrots or cucumbers.
Mini Pizza Pans How fun would these be for family pizza nights?
Egg Slicer
Banana Slicer This is definitely not a kitchen essential, but can be fun if you have a child who regularly eats bananas. After they slice them, they can spread them with nut butter using their own little spreader – there are tons of fun ones
Mini Potato Masher This is perfect for helping with the mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes for holiday dinners, but it would also work well for making guacamole.
Cherry Pitter This was one of the most beloved food prep works in the class where I taught.
Apple Slicer Some little ones do not yet have the muscle strength to use this on their own yet, but older four year olds or five year olds are often successful with it.
Egg Beater This would be fun for letting your child help with holiday baking. Handheld mixers like this can also be used for bubble making – all you need is a mixing bowl, water, and a few drops of dish soap.
Spice Grinder
Mini Grater These little graters are great for letting your little one help with taco night.
I always love the For Small Hands site for kids’ kitchen tools (and so many other things…) as well.
Do you do stockings in your family?
They’re one of my favorite parts of Christmas!
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12 Comments
These are all so cute! My son loves grinding pepper for me. They also both love pretending silicone potholders are dinosaurs, which is pretty entertaining.
Thank you! Grinding pepper is a great idea, I hadn’t thought of that!
This is such a fun post! I would love some of those kitchen gadgets and I don’t even have kids yet 😉
Thank you! Haha, I agree, some of them are fun for adults too. I had never seen a cherry pitter until we got one at school, but I kind of love it and I love using the little grater for small things like ginger. Thanks for reading!
Hello, Christina.
What an interesting article! I never knew that there are kitchen tools for kids. I used to buy kitchen tools toys for my niece. Good thing I read your article. I am giving them kitchen tools this Christmas.
Thank you! Some of them are designed for kids and some of them are just kid-friendly / easy to use. Thanks for reading!
This is so fun! My little one is only 17 months but I have been wanting to get her more involved in cooking in the kitchen with me. Maybe one of these will help her be interseted!
Thank you! I think the banana slicer and potato masher would probably be the easiest for younger toddlers. I cannot wait until my son is old enough to cook with me!!
Great post! I think my son is definitely getting ready for some of these. I just need to get him more used to the blender too lol!
I am totally not tech savvy so maybe I am missing it…but do you have Pinterest buttons anywhere? I’d love to Pin this for later! And your top picture is so adorably pinnable too!
Thank you! Haha, James is SO scared of the blender and I think it’s so funny because he does not seem to mind similar sounds like the coffee grinder and garbage disposal. My husband suggested maybe it has a high frequency sound that we can’t hear as well, but I have no clue lol… When I scroll over my images, a little Pinterest icon shows up, but if it doesn’t for you, I have no clue…sorry, not helpful! I am definitely not tech savvy either lol.
I don’t see the button with your images. I know what you mean though because I see it a lot around the web. But it’s okay, this was a great reason for me to finally add the Pinterest Save button to my Chrome browser and that let me save your pic/post extension with no trouble. Don’t know why I didn’t add it sooner lol 🙂
We grind our coffee beans in the bathroom… I’ve found placing my nutribullet on top of a rug is key to muffling the noise – the bathroom outlet is too high but I have a bathmat in my laundry room (right near the kitchen thank goodness) and it has a low electrical outlet. I feel a little ridiculous every time I do it…
Ahh, thank you! I must have the save button and that’s why it was showing up for me – I am seriously the worst with technology lol. Haha, that’s so funny about the coffee grinder! I like to give James smoothies for afternoon snacks, so I blend them as soon as he goes down for his afternoon nap (in case it would wake him up). Lol, whatever works!