Of all the Raddish Kids lessons we’ve enjoyed thus far, the suggested “Kitchen Brigade” unit to go with our Croque Monsieur Sandwiches was the hardest to adapt for a preschooler. It involves learning and identifying the different jobs within the classic French kitchen hierarchy, and was a stretch to make this material accessible to my four year old.

Instead, I turned the focus onto him being a chef… with his own chef’s hat (toque) of course!

First, cut about 3 feet of parchment paper. Travis was really into the feel of the paper, since we don’t use it very often. “What’s this?” he asked, delighted.

Fold up accordion-style, then unfold; your paper now has a pleated look.

Tape two sheets of regular white paper together for the base of the hat.

Fold in half, then in half again, and open back up. Fit the parchment paper into this base, and staple closed at the ends and middle.

Gather together the top of the parchment paper, and tape to secure.

Now fold the whole hat inside out, tucking the tapered point inside. Staple together (make sure the hat will fit your child’s head before stapling), and voila!

Note: If the directions are hard to follow, you can get a visual of the project here.

Next my little chef de cuisine and I did sit down briefly to discuss kitchen roles. I simplified greatly, selecting 6 jobs for him: chef de cuisine, sous chef, patissier, aboyeur, line cook, and plongeur (dish washer).

There are multiple games that big kids can play by making flash cards for each of these jobs (plus many other roles): memory games; charades; role playing; or “who’s the boss,” (i.e. knowing the order of the kitchen hierarchy. Rather than play a true memory game, I simply had Travis name each job while looking at the flash cards we made, and tell me which job it was.

In this way, at least he knew 6 kitchen roles, and roughly their hierarchy, since we numbered them 1 through 6.

Overall, I doubt he took much from the lesson… But he did like his toque!