Family Style Co-op Kitchen helps kids practice and improve the following skills:

Focus

Getting started and then maintaining attention and effort to tasks.

This game is great for practicing focus skills. The players have to be able to ignore internal and external distractions in order to keep track of what ingredients they need and any actions that must be completed first. They also have to be able to focus on both what they need and what their teammates need, and go back and forth seamlessly. There is also the short-term focus of paying attention to one recipe, which is two to five ingredients, but also the longer term focus of maintaining attention for round after round. The better the focus, the more variety and fun each round will have.

Self-Awareness

Understanding our own actions, thoughts and feelings.

This game also provides ample opportunity to work on social skills and communicating thoughts. The only way to play this game is to verbalize what you need and ask what the other players need—and then cooperate to make sure both sets of needs are met. If all players are not open to talking to each other, they will fail quickly and not get into the levels that have more ingredients and cooking actions.