Toca Kitchen provides a lot of opportunities for learning and as a bonus the reactions of the characters are pretty entertaining (especially the bull). You can ask the child to choose a specific ingredient and preform precise steps to prepare it. If you are working on following instructions with the child, you can chain a few steps together to carry out in the kitchen.

While observing the reactions of the characters ask, “Did they like it/how do you know?” There isn’t a whole lot more to expand on here but it is a small opportunity to generalize this skill. You can also work on knowing with your kiddo. For example, one of the characters doesn’t like meat unless it is blended and cooked into a patty. This adds another layer to likes/dislikes as well as the option to target cause and effect skills. The user also has loads of options to prepare the food (cut, blend, boil, fry, microwave, and more). Selecting the ingredients is only part of the fun to be had with this app. For instance, instead of saying, “broccoli,” you might say, “the green vegetable.” You can also work on negations by asking the child to pick an ingredient that is “ not a fruit,” for example. Instead of always naming the ingredient, try referring to the ingredient by its category and/or color.

You can ask which characters liked or disliked certain foods.Īs you are working through these questions, there are always opportunities to vary your language to include categories, colors and negations. For instance, if the cat makes a happy face after eating a boiled lemon you can ask, “Did the cat like it?” Once you’ve done a few of these, you can go back to the main screen and ask questions about the preferences of each character. For starters, ask the child how the character feels after eating each food item based on the character’s reaction. It is easy to work on inferring likes/dislikes, cause and effect, and preferences with this app.

Toca boca eating game