How to make sushi with kids

Gather ingredients (see supplies list below) 👇 Most can be found at any Asian market, including the bamboo sushi mats and kids' chopsticks.

Pour dry rice into the pot. Rinse by filling up with warm water, swishing the rice around with your hand, then pouring out the water. Repeat until water is no longer cloudy.

Add the water to the dry rice, cover, and flip rice cooker switch to "cook." Once cooked, pour rice into a mixing bowl to cool.

To flavor the rice, heat the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan until sugar dissolves. Pour half onto rice and mix in. Rice that's too moist already may not need the second half.

Gather the ingredients for the inside of your sushi, a grater, and a knife.

Kids can grate the cucumbers and carrots. We used the kind that's child-proof.

The grown-up can slice the cucumber into thin strips...

... while kids can scoop out the cucumber seeds with a spoon.

Slice the carrots also into long, thing strips.

As well as the avocado.

Now, gather all ingredients to be rolled into your sushi.

Place a nori sheet onto the bamboo mat, shiny face down.

*This is the part kids love! With wet hands, plop a handful of rice onto the nori and carefully spread with a rice spatula only about 1/4" thick. Leave about 3/4" of an uncovered area at the top.

Form ingredients width-wise, but we scootched them down a bit more than this before rolling because the first rolling motion needs to capture all the veggies. I like them to stick out the ends a bit.

Show kids to roll the nori over using the bamboo mat...

... until one rotation is formed—meaning just when the bottom edge of the nori meets the rice.

Squeeze the bamboo mat to tightly pack the roll's shape.

Roll back the mat and finish rolling the sushi with just your hands. Then form the mat around the fully-rolled sushi to pack it tighter—otherwise the insides will fall out while being cut!

In a light sawing motion (otherwise the knife will squish the round shape down), first cut the roll in half. If kids are old enough to use a knife, they may cut their own.

Show them what the cross-section looks like and praise them! They get really excited to see this and seem awe-struck that they made such a pattern.

Cut each half into three pieces, making six pieces in all.

Present on a pretty plate faced upward. This one was mine...

... and this one was an 10 year old's. Not bad! Just reiterate the light sawing motion when cutting, and to tightly squeeze the shape when rolling the sushi. Either way, it's delicious!

We made some instant miso soup I bought from the Japanese market to complete our meal, and ate outside on the patio at sunset. *sigh* 😌

Eating your own meal always tastes best, and in the end it doesn't even matter how it looks! TIP: Chopsticks are tricky for tiny hands, so you can provide clip things to keep them together at the top.