From Sesame Street to the Kitchen: Designing Learning That Sticks
What Sesame Street taught us about co-viewing and how the same model belongs in the kitchen
One of the most effective learning models ever designed wasn’t meant for a classroom. It happened in living rooms.
Sesame Street doesn’t just teach preschoolers letters, numbers, and social skills. It is designed for co-viewing. A kid watches with a caregiver nearby; the kid is engrossed, while the grownup, only half-paying attention, overhears the language, questions, and teaching strategies woven into the show.
That design choice mattered. It meant learning didn’t end when the episode did. The adults picked up the language of instruction. They heard how questions were asked, how the grown ups on the show framed mistakes, and how the writers reinforced their learning goals. Later, and maybe even without realizing it, they would mirror that language, ask follow-up questions, and extend the learning into everyday life.
Sesame Street doesn’t just teach kids. It teaches adults how to teach. This combination—child engagement with adult proximity—proved incredibly successful. Kids and adults learned together, even though the lessons were vastly different. And the adults’ learning helped the kids’ learning stick. It’s a revolutionary model.
Co-Viewing and the Power of Transfer
Learning science tells us that for learning to transfer—that is, to last beyond the moment of the lesson and allow the learner to apply the lesson to new situations—kids need more than exposure. They need repetition, reinforcement, and opportunities for reflection. They need chances to talk about what they did, how they did it, and why it worked. Teachers know this foundational rule of learning science and integrate these ideas into their lessons every day.
But these insights don’t need to be confined to the classroom. Research shows that when caregivers engage children in conversation during or after a shared experience, the relevant concepts become clearer, the kids develop language, and they revisit, refine, and reinforce old ideas. As Fisch and Truglio explain:
“The educational power of Sesame Street can be made even greater if the program is used as a springboard for discussion or activities conducted by a parent or caregiver.”
The learning becomes collaborative, but not because the adult takes over. Instead, adults help make meaning of the experience. At their best, adults can let kids reflect on what happened and work with them to identify and integrate the lesson.
This is metacognition in action: thinking about thinking, noticing strategies, naming challenges, and reflecting on success. It’s how to make learning sticks and transfers.
From Screens to Everyday Life
And just as these insights reach beyond the classroom, they also reach beyond the screen. Co-viewing is the application of a broader learning design model where:
The child is the primary learner;
The adult is nearby, observing but not directing;
The shared experience offers an opportunity for reflection, conversation, and transfer.
These are the conditions that support metacognition, and we—as educators and parents—can build this structure anywhere learning happens, including (or especially) in the kitchen.
Cooking at home can naturally mirror the co-viewing model. A child takes on the task, while a grown-up is nearby, not hovering and not taking over, but available to support. The adult’s presence creates space for kids to take risks with a safety net. It allows adults to notice how their kid learns and how to better support their learning. And it opens the door for the conversations that turn an activity into lasting learning.
Applying the Model to Cooking at Home
I first learned about the intentional design behind Sesame Street in graduate school, between my years as a classroom teacher. I was inspired by the realization that informal learning made a real impact—that the best learning happens when we meet kids where they already are and doesn’t rely on classrooms or formal instruction to be effective. Years and many teaching experiences later, I’m still deeply influenced by Sesame’s model, and it has become a central reference point for my own work. Nibblings grew directly out of this way of thinking.
In fact, I believe that cooking at home is the ideal setting to foster this meaningful, informal learning. Our kitchens are familiar spaces, stocked with tools kids recognize and low-stakes enough to allow for mistakes. They’re places where learning can feel playful rather than performative. But most importantly, they’re where family already is.
When kids cook at home with a grown-up nearby, they move naturally between independence and connection. They try something hard. They check in. They keep going. This rhythm mirrors what attachment research describes as a secure base: a relationship that supports exploration and autonomy without constant direction.
Just as Sesame Street didn’t only teach kids letters and numbers but also modeled how those concepts could be taught, Nibblings is designed to teach adults alongside kids. The recipes support kids’ learning directly, while the companion articles (like this one) are written for grown-ups. They explain what’s happening beneath the surface of the recipe and offer language and strategies to support learning without taking over.
Cooking a Nibblings recipe isn’t just about making food. It’s about creating a shared experience that teaches kids, and at the same time teaches adults how to support learning in thoughtful, intentional ways.
That’s why Nibblings cooking happens at home.
That’s why it’s for kids and grown-ups.
And that’s why the learning doesn’t end when the recipe does.
