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Classes / Sensory Cooking Classes

Coming Soon · Gauging Interest

Sensory-Based Cooking Classes for Kids

Cooking classes built for the kid who won't touch the food yet — no pressure, no bribing, no clean-plate club.

Ages 2–10 · Small groups · Vista clinic & co-op locations

Join the Interest ListCall or Text (760) 235-4748
Children in a Dr. Yum inspired sensory cooking class exploring fresh food with a pediatric feeding therapist

This is a cooking class designed around how picky eaters actually work. It is inspired by the Dr. Yum Project's Preschool Food Adventure curriculum — Lindsey Wood is a certified instructor — and built out by our feeding therapists into a full sensory-based series.

Most kids who avoid food are not being difficult. They are having a sensory experience that the rest of us aren't. So we start where the child is: looking at it, smelling it, cutting it, squishing it, naming it. Tasting is allowed but never required. That single rule is what makes children willing to come back to the table.

Each class centers on a recipe the group makes together, with the whole sensory ladder built in — touch, smell, sound, sight — so a child can participate fully and successfully on a day they have no intention of eating anything.

What happens in class

Hands-on recipe prep with real tools
Food exploration through touch, smell & sound
Learning food names, textures & families
Cooking alongside peers doing the same thing
Zero-pressure tasting — always invited, never forced
Take-home recipes so it keeps going at your table

A good fit for

Picky and selective eaters who freeze at new foods
Kids who eat a short list of 'safe' foods
Families exhausted by mealtime battles
Preschools, homeschool co-ops and small groups wanting a food curriculum

Want this class? Tell us.

We schedule classes when enough families ask for them — so adding your name here is what actually gets this on the calendar. It takes a minute, costs nothing, and commits you to nothing.

Which would you want? Pick as many as you like

No commitment and no payment — this just tells us what to schedule next. We'll only email you about the classes you picked.

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