Big cook little cook welcome to our cafe! (Big Cook Little Cook)

Member Name: adam171275

Product:	Big Cook Little Cook
Date:	03/05/09 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: eduactional, gets kids watching

Disadvantages: none for kids, but adults may overdose on it!

Now my son has reached the ripe old age of 20 months during the day the television is pretty much his. Whether it is me or my wife at home with him we will both, by tea time, be child's TV out. His favourite channel is C Beebies. This was also my little girl's favourite channel at that age, so my wife and I have both been accustomed to the programmes they show. The programme which he absolutely loves is Big cook little cook and I remember that my daughter loved this programme too.

The programme is on at the moment at 10am and 130pm on the C Beebies channel which is on channel 614 on sky and free view it's 71 but I am not sure of the channel for virgin.

What it's briefly about is two men called Big cook Ben and Little cook small. Ben is man size and small is computerised to make him as big as an egg timer. They are both cooks who run a café. On every show they have a different visitor to the café, in which they have to cook for.

What I like about the show is that it gets children really interested in food and what it entails to prepare and cook it. The visitors they tend to get are make-believe characters such as Goldilocks or a dragon etc. The list is endless! They will always decide to cook something appropriate for the character, which resembles the characteristics of their visitor. I think this is a great idea as it gets children to think about what type of thing they could cook for the character.

The programme is very educational; once they have decided what to cook little cook small will fly off on his wooden spoon to find out about one of the ingredients in the recipe. This morning, he sped off to find out about tofu, which if I'm honest, most children would probably never heard of, so is very educational. When I look at the meals they produce, they are really what I would call nonsense food and not what you would generally eat. At the same time, the programme is just about educating children in food and the preparation and cooking of it. For this purpose, it does a very good job.

The other part of the show that I think is very good is the fact that they also make the tidying up part of the show very important. We all know that children don't really like tidying up and this part will tend to be very hard work. Ben and Small make it look really fun and point out that they cannot play until they have tidied up. This is so refreshing to hear, as I know most parents will battle with this part. They sing a song as they do it and do make it look fun which we all know that children love a bit of fun! I will often find my wife singing along to this song, as she has heard it so much and it really is very catchy!


When I watch the programme with my son, I do cringe at Ben and small, but at the same time think they must have such a laugh shooting the episodes. They really make total idiots of themselves! Myself I couldn't imagine acting like that!


The visuals in the programme are very bright which always gets a child glued to the television and will keep the watching. They show this on C Beebies twice a day and my son will watch it both times, just as my daughter did a few years ago. This will now always to get my little girl engrossed and she is six. The programme is really aimed at preschool but as proved in my house older children still like it. This truly is the one children's programme that my son will actually sit and watch all the way through! Because of this I will give it 5 stars, as it gives us a bit of peace!

To sum it up, it's a great educational programme for children, which I would definitely recommend. It shows the importance of preparing, cooking and tidying up after a meal, which is very important. The visuals are great and the characters are great fun! If you go onto the C Beebies website there is a Big Cook Little Cook page on there with lots of information, fun and games.

Summary: great eduactional childrens programme