Sesame Street: C is for Cooking product reviews

As the title suggests Sesame Street's C is for Cooking is about food. My girls (4 and 5.5 years) love it for it's entertainment value yet as a parent I love it for the huge educational value. It is certainly a DVD I would be happy for my children to watch regularly.

The first section of the DVD is a cooking competition not unlike the many cooking shows that are on our screens most nights. Firstly they need to make a P stew containing only ingredients that start with P. This is great for building Miss 4's alphabet knowledge. The other parts of the competition involve counting and cutting the ingredients in half which are both important maths concepts for preschoolers to develop. Since it is done by Elmo the children love it and don't realise they are learning.

The favorite part of the DVD for me was the vegetables protesting about not being appreciated. During this we are introduced to lots of vegetables and the idea you don't know if you like them unless you taste them. Miss 4 told me she wanted to try eggplant and she continued to ask long after we had finished the DVD so the next day we bought one and cooked it for dinner. Unfortunately she took a bite and declared she didn't like it but I discovered I love it as I hadn't eaten it for years.

Cookie Monster, known for his love of cookies, is educated on sometimes (cookies)and anytime foods (fruit and vegetables). This is a good way to show the children about healthy eating. There is also a segment on eating the rainbow of fruit and vegetables. My girls loved shouting out the different foods both on the screen and that matched each colour.

There is also lots of segments about cooking which prompted Miss 5.5 to ask about yeast (this resulted in a mini science lesson) and request we make our own bread into a plait. It is great to see a DVD that prompts us to get off the couch and do something together. This is a DVD I would recommend to any parent of a preschooler that has a limited pallet. It also doesn't mention about eating meat so is suitable for vegetarian families.