Naperville will be home to one of three Montessori-inspired Little Kitchen Academy cooking schools for children opening in Illinois.
The Vancouver, Canada-based school provides an environment for kids ages 3 through high school to learn how to safely handle kitchen equipment, make better food choices and perhaps most important to parents, clean up after themselves.
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Brian Curin, cofounder/co-CEO and president of Little Kitchen Academy, said the environment is critically and mindfully designed for a child to flourish and go through the journey toward independence.
“It might just be learning to crack an egg properly, how to surface sanitize and wash your hands properly, or about the sustainability and circular economy because we almost exclusively only produce compost and recycling without garbage,” he said.
The idea behind the academy’s “scratch to consumption” philosophy came from Curin’s wife Felicity, who is the company’s cofounder and co-CEO.
“She’s got the Montessori background and culinary background and wanted to marry the two loves and passions,” Curin said.
As the parents of three daughters, the Curins often would invite their kids’ friends over for meals.
“They were picky eaters or fussy eaters, and the parents would say, ‘We don’t eat vegetables’ or what have you,” Curin said.
What the Curins realized was that when people grow their own food, make their own meals, have choices and options, and understand where their foods come from, all of that pickiness goes away.
Little Kitchen Academy strives to choose fresh foods that are local and seasonal, which have more nutrients, lead to a healthier lifestyle and actually are less expensive, he said.
The locations in Naperville, Plainfield and Chicago will be rolled out in phases by franchise partner Randall Barba, who owns Goldfish Swim Schools in Naperville and north Plainfield and two other states.
Plans are to open the cooking academy adjacent to the Plainfield swim school while he’s looking for a place in Naperville and Chicago.
Naperville was an obvious choice, Barba said, because it’s very family-oriented and kid-centric.
He’s drawn to businesses that teach life skills, he said.
“I love the idea that after (kids) learn everything, they get to cook and then eat their final product,” Barba said. “I think this is a great opportunity to enlighten kids, educate them, and introduce them to cooking and being self-sufficient.”
The sessions of three-hour classes run year-round and are organized by ages — 3 to 5, 6 to 8, 9 to 12, and 13 and older. Up to 10 students are supervised by three instructors per class.
No matter the age level, classes begin with the children changing into a chef’s coat and learning to properly wash their hands before working through the recipe of the day by collecting, washing and prepping ingredients.
Lessons apply age-appropriate math and science skills in real-world settings.
The curriculum for kids 3 to 5 focuses on strengthening gross motor skills and developing and refining fine motor skills along with discovering different ways to prepare fruits and vegetables that make them more appealing.
Younger children also build communication skills by describing what they like and don’t like. Instead of a blanket statement like, “I don’t like tomatoes,” kids can say, “I like tomatoes when they are seasoned.”
Students ages 6 to 8 are all about imagination and abstraction, such as figuring out different choices to make their foods taste better.
They also are exposed to real world fractions and division when cutting a whole pepper into slices and the science of where food comes from and how it benefits the body.
With 9- to 12-year-olds aware of their social surroundings, sessions spark conversations around different dietary beliefs and needs, recycling and composting practices, and eating locally and organically.
They also are encouraged to think about tweaking recipes.
LKA Late Nights was created for teens as a place to hang out with friends, take photos for social media, and leave with new confidence and skills in the kitchen.
In class, teens learn about nutrition and how their choices affect the environment and the planet so families can feel comfortable sending their teens off onto their next adventure with the ability to feed themselves with healthy ingredients.
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Since opening to students in 2019, Curin said the academy has seen more than a 30% repeat rate.
Students who come to class attend every week, he said, “so it becomes part of their regular everyday activities, just like soccer, Taekwondo, dance or whatever it might be.”
In addition to providing its own courses, the academy partners with public and private schools, day cares, Montessori schools and home-school communities to enhance their curricula, Curin said.
Similar to a field trip, schools send students once a week for four weeks in a row as part of the core curriculum or enrichment to learn valuable and practical skills, he said.
Weeklong sessions also are scheduled in the summer, winter and spring as the school calendars allow and give time for more complex recipes that students can build on day by day.
Curin said the reaction from adults often is “I wish I had this when I was growing up” or “I wish my kitchen could look like this.”
That leads to one of the two biggest questions Curin hears: Can grown-ups take the class?
The answer is no, as is the response to the other question — whether the academy does birthday parties.