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News Coverage and General Buzz

Trends Magazine Highlights Chef Koochooloo as Innovative Way to Teach Both Cooking and Science

Trends June 10, 2021

“The technology platform Chef Koochooloo teaches primary school children healthy eating habits and scientific skills at the same time. After a successful pilot project in Silicon Valley, the start-up is ready to conquer the world. ‘We especially want to have a social impact,’ says CEO Layla Sabourian.”

Little Chef Delarai Partners with EduKit to Discuss Making a Difference on Wellbeing Podcast

Edukit Positive Place Podcast March 6, 2021

Boove Magazine Names Chef Koochooloo Top U.S. STEM Education and EdTech Company

Boove Magazine March 1, 2021

“By giving teachers a flexible software framework, we become adaptive to other industries that rely on STEM (e.g. music, fashion, maker crafts, etc.) providing assessment tools and lesson planning to these external content activities while aligned to Common Core, NGSS and other national standards.”

The ED Games Expo “Goes Virtual” to Support Distance Learning

IES Research March 30, 2020

“Chef Koochooloo is a game platform that teaches kindergarten through fifth grade students cultural sensitivity, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) concepts (assessed as per national standards), and sustainability through healthy cooking in schools. Developed in part with a 2019 NSF SBIR award.”

Chef Koochooloo Visits the Girls' Festival

Chef Koochooloo, Youtube December 8, 2019

Chef Koochooloo Profiled as an App Designed for All Users -- Interview with Marketing Expert and CEO Layla Sabourian

mira.co June 6, 2019

Mira.co interviews marketing experts, and share their techniques with you. In the same vein, they interview Layla Sabourian, of Chef Koochooloo.

“Layla Sabourian is the founder and mastermind behind the creative family-oriented cooking app, Chef Koochooloo. Like any good learning tool, it pairs fun kid-friendly activities with lessons on other cultures, healthier lifestyles, and even some math and science. An accompanying recipe book is in development as well.”

Chef Koochooloo Awarded Competitive Grant from the National Science Foundation

Pr.com June 1, 2019

“Chef Koochooloo wins a competitive grant from the National Science Foundation and invitations from the French and Swiss governments to pilot the idea in Europe. It teaches kids healthy eating from around the world, and infuses STEAM concepts through lessons. It is an example of how schools and policy makers can improve ethnically diverse students’ success via culturally responsive teaching, with education programs and technologies using knowledge, attitudes and skills for inclusive classrooms.”

Farsi Summer Camp 2018 in Menlo Park!

Chef Kooochooloo, Youtube October 2, 2018

Kidz Universe - Inspiring 9 Year Old Chef Delarai And Her Entrepreneurial Mom

KMVT October 2, 2018

Founder Of Chef Koochooloo supports woman start-ups in Silicon Valley

KBCW Youtube September 10, 2018

Chef Koochooloo at Start-up Company Pitch at FoodBytes! SF

Chef Koochooloo Youtube August 23, 2018

American Chemical Society (ACS) Presentation

American Chemical Society August 23, 2018

Chef Koochooloo Explored as a Cooking App That Enhances Your Skills -- Interview with Layla Sabourian by Dr. Foojan Zeine

Dr. Foojan Zeine, Youtube Feburary 2, 2018

Chef Koochooloo

I Love Mountain View January 25, 2018

“I went to Landels Elementary School yesterday to watch Chef Koochooloo After School Program in action this week. It was so much fun (for me!) and the kids had a great time too.”

Women In Tech Face Challenges Of Maternal Bias

Betty Yu, CBSN Bay Area October 29, 2017

“Silicon Valley has a well-documented gender discrimination problem, but more female entrepreneurs are coming forward saying they’ve been victims of “momism” or maternal bias.”

Chef Koochooloo CEO on The Heart of Silicon Valley

The Heart of Silicon Valley April 4, 2016

Gino Franco wrote about using Chef Koochooloo.app in education

Gino Franco, Business-Software.com July 6th, 2015

“Chef Koochooloo is a start up located in Mountain View, CA that strives to empower families and educators to engage in fun, interactive culinary studies while enhancing math, science, and social studies knowledge. The curriculum allows children to learn by touching, tasting, feeling, smelling, and listening. They love every aspect of the program because they can use all of their senses. They are also able to make sense of science and math in a more concrete tangible way.”

Caring Causes: Chef Koochooloo

Bekah, Motherhood Moment May 21, 2015

Chef Koochooloo Adds Culture to the Mix

Chef Hollie Greene, JoyFoodly May 20, 2015

“Chef Koochooloo is a social enterprise focused on teaching kids math, science and geography through one hour long cooking sessions, while raising awareness about worldwide causes affecting kids.”

Robyn Tippins wrote about Creating Community featuring Chef Koochooloo.

Robbin Tippins, Mariposa Interactive February 26, 2015

“Chef Koochooloo is a project that was created from the very beginning through community feedback. I basically posted some recipes I was teaching my daughter on my blog and blog readership tripled within weeks, then I started getting requests from parents whether we could post more recipes, include their country or ingredients of choice, etc.”

Moms Who Mean Business: Moms Making Learning Fun

Amy Norman, Using Your Words December 8, 2014

“I had the pleasure of working with Layla at Yahoo!. She was an active, engaged writer for Yodeling Mamas—the blog I ran which featured writing from moms who worked at Yahoo!. I’ve loved watching as her idea for an app quickly grew into Bay Area cooking/cultural classes, a thriving blog with recipes and accompanying lessons about the region, products, and, of course, an app in the making.”

Testimonials

As a pediatrician I emphasize the importance of preventive measures towards obesity with early intervention programs such as the Chef Koochooloo platform. Chef Koochooloo is ideal for children between the ages of 4-12, the students benefit from the early introduction of textures, smells and flavors that facilities sensory-motor processing, while benefiting from quantitative and qualitative measurements. Obesity is mainly related to environmental factors and habits that are nurtured early in life and often correlate with lower cognitive and social functions even in the general population. Thus the developments of programs such as Chef Koochooloo should become a priority in our public health education. I found the curriculum unique because of the simplicity of the teaching methods, the choice of recipes, and the interactions between peers and instructor. I also like the way the platform addresses cultural sensitivity and socials skills’ acquisition by discovering new countries and learning about their respective cultures. I suggest this program for all my patients specially those that are at risk of developing obesity, as well as those with problems with social skills and sensory processing issues.

Reymundo Lozano

M.D & College Professor, Mind Institute, UC Davis

As an academic I highly value the Chef Koochooloo curriculum. Their program is fostering social skills in a unique way. Communication is an important part of cooking with another person. Kids get a chance to read, understand and explain recipe steps, while taking turns and problem-solving any issues that pop up. The Chef Koochooloo cooking classes provide inspiration for meaningful conversations: I like how the instructors tell fun relevant facts about the country and origin of the recipe as kids mix the secret quince mixture for the Persian delights. The lessons are encouraging good eating habits and give kids the confidence and cultural curiosity to get creative in the kitchen, building lifelong habits of healthier eating. As an anthropologist, I simply love the way Chef Koochooloo brings up issues that affect kids world wide, and ignites meaningful conversations on how to help bring about positive change, encouraging responsibility and independence. The field of cultural anthropology has as a main aim helping students to better understand and appreciate cultures in various countries. The Chef Koochooloo cooking classes does this beautifully through teaching students about cultures of other countries, and will help them to appreciate cultural diversity.

Mary Elaine Hegland

Professor, Department of Anthropology, Santa Clara University

We have worked with Chef Koochooloo this year and our students and parents have found it to be an educational and engaging experience. Chef Koochooloo’s approach to merging culinary adventures with child relevant geography facts has enabled our students to have fun while learning cooking and safety skills. Children who have been attending the Chef Koochooloo classes for the past weeks have begun to exhibit better knowledge about making healthy food choices, better attitudes about food and improved eating habits. We love that Chef Koochooloo leverages everyday cooking to illuminate basic principles in physics and engineering, while teaching the kids social responsibility in a unique way that makes learning a truly global adventure. I have been very impressed with the academic focus of the program and their focus on integrating math, science and geography into the curriculum. We are pleased to be able to offer this program to our students and feel it has been of great benefit to those who have enrolled.

Sarah Tellez

Principal, Sunnyvale School District

The Oshman Family Jewish Community Center aspires to be a community that enriches lives builds the community and inspires the Jewish journey. Working with a person who can bring all ages together in one room has been a great asset to our Cooking Havurah class. Instead of working within the normal boundaries Chef Koochooloo has taught us to work together and across ages, showing us ways to interact without verbal skills; like teens working with toddlers, grandparents working with young adults. She has also shown families how to be more health conscience by preparing and consuming heathier non processed foods. Part of Chef Koochooloo’s skill is being able to share her knowledge about geography, history, Jewish traditions and holidays then fitting these into what is cooked as a group. Because of Chef Koochooloo’s skills and expertise we now not only prepare food for ourselves but started “Cooking it forward,” sharing what we make with the seniors at our local memory unit home. Overall working with Chef Koochooloo has taught all of us how to build a community together better, as well as continue to discover new ways to look at why we are doing it, giving it a story and pathway for those joining us in the future.Children who have been attending the Chef Koochooloo classes for the past weeks have begun to exhibit better knowledge about making healthy food choices, better attitudes about food and improved eating habits. We love that Chef Koochooloo leverages everyday cooking to illuminate basic principles in physics and engineering, while teaching the kids social responsibility in a unique way that makes learning a truly global adventure. I have been very impressed with the academic focus of the program and their focus on integrating math, science and geography into the curriculum. We are pleased to be able to offer this program to our students and feel it has been of great benefit to those who have enrolled.

Robin E. Vasilakos

Community Engagement & Marketing

As the person responsible for managing after school programs for Fairwood Elementary School, I was impressed to see that Chef Koochooloo had one of the highest turnout rates of students that enrolled in the classes. Also, I am pleased with parents’ positive feedback about the cooking program. My daughter and her friends have continually shown interest in cooking at home. In Silicon Valley, we live in a uniquely diverse part of the country. I am encouraged by Chef Koochooloo’s objectives to teach children how to prepare dishes while learning about cultures around the world. I expect that enrollment for cooking classes will exponentially grow next school year. I look forward to having Chef Koochooloo continue after-school classes at Fairwood for many years to come.

Stacey Peralta

After School Programs Manager

Chef Koochooloo presented a pilot at our schools this spring and my students simply loved the experience. As an educator, I see many benefits to their program. For one thing, the Chef Koochooloo lesson plans are boosting math and science skills. Their cooking lessons let kids practice basic math skills like counting, weighing, measuring and estimating with every recipe. Keeping track of cooking times helped them better understand sequencing, the idea that events occur in a logical order. I love that the Chef Koochooloo lessons also teach kids science and nutrition in a fun child appropriate way, as they discover the difference between fruits and vegetables, or learn the benefits of eggplant.

Sarireh Nadimi

Kindergarten teacher at Monticello Academy

Chef Koochooloo is disruptive in the number of user groups it targets. In lieu of separating the adult and child experience, it helps to form a learning partnership between a child (ages 4-8) and his/her parent (adults ages 25-45). Chef Koochooloo caters to the discovery learning habits of a child in tandem with adult learning principles. This layering is like a modern Disney or Pixar movie that is fun for children but creatively written to include innuendos that appeal to an adult’s sense of humor. The animated globe is a feature that is engaging for the entire family, the country facts are especially stimulating for the parents, while the audio translation feature seems to put kids in awe.

Saman Javan Learning Experience Designer

As a stay at home mom, homeschooling three kids, I’m always on the lookout for ideas that will make learning more adventurous for my kids, while keeping an orderly house. I’ve found myself particularly in love with the Chef Koochooloo curriculum. I was fascinated to see my own kids find a new passion for my native land Argentina, as the way the Chef Koochooloo lesson was presented was truly engaging for them, and by the end of lesson, we also had a delicious home cooked meal! I had often told the about Argentina before, but the way this curriculum was formulated, it really caught their interest. I have enjoyed being a beta-testers for the app, and cannot wait for it to be publicly available, so I can tell all of the homeschooling Moms in my co-op about it.

Claudia Cattaneo Auxier Homeschooling Mom

Chef Koochooloo did their very first pilot at our school last spring. Our students simply loved their culinary adventure and talk fondly of their experience.

Bahar Ortakan Founder of Baharestan Persian Immersion School

Chef Koochooloo simply delighted our students at Green meadow Montessori today. I think the idea of the app is brilliant, and as a teacher, I cannot wait to discover more recipes and lesson plans through the upcoming iPad application.

Tina Chang

Montessori School of Los Altos

For our family the highlight of Chef Koochooloo was the Ingredient Spotlight. My daughter loved learning more about science and nutrient through a new ingredient.

Daniel Chang

Parent

We had a great time as a family discovering France through cooking! My kids loved the fun facts and the way the curriculum was set up, I loved to see them so engaged in Geography and math while cooking!

Bardia Akbari

Parent

Chef Koochooloo took our students to a culinary journey to Argentina today. The kids simply loved making Sandwiches de Miga, and learning more about math and science through cooking!

Danielle Thopmson & Erin Reeves

Belmont Oaks Academy

Anisha Nema is one of our students in Chef Koochooloo culinary journey. She talks about her experience with our class and program.

Anisha Nema

Student

Chef Koochooloo

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The ED Games Expo “Goes Virtual” to Support Distance Learning

IES Research March 30, 2020