Cooking Up Literacy Tip: Share What You Love—Then Learn Together

What Mustang Football Club can teach us about turning our talents, passions, and time into meaningful learning experiences for children

Mustang student-athletes share their love of football with younger children through hands-on drills and activities, with coaches providing guidance and support—turning a day on the field into an opportunity to learn, lead, connect, and grow.

At What’s Stirring Family Foundation, we believe literacy and learning don't have to begin with a worksheet—or even at a desk.

Sometimes learning starts with a football.

This summer, Mustang Football Club student-athletes gave back to their community by spending time with younger children during a one-day football camp. The children had an opportunity to experience the game through football drills, practice activities, movement, and interaction with older student-athletes.

The Mustang players shared something they already knew and loved.

Mustang student-athletes and coaches encourage young participants as they learn, practice, and grow together through football.

From Athlete to Role Model

During the one-day summer football camp, younger children had the opportunity to learn and experience the game alongside Mustang student-athletes. With coaches present to provide guidance and support, the student-athletes engaged with younger participants through football drills, practice activities, encouragement, and shared time on the field.

For the Mustang players, the experience was about more than football. It gave them an opportunity to share something they know and enjoy with children coming behind them—and to experience what it means to be someone a younger child can look up to.

For the younger participants, the camp offered an opportunity to be active, try new skills, build confidence, and connect with older student-athletes in a positive environment.

And that offers a wonderful Cooking Up Literacy tip for families:

A Cooking Up Literacy Tip: Share What You Love

The experience reminds us of something families can practice every day: our talents, interests, and time can become tools for learning.

You don't have to be a teacher to create meaningful learning experiences at home.

Think about something you enjoy or know how to do.

Maybe it's cooking. Maybe it's sports. Perhaps you garden, sew, build things, work on cars, play music, draw, dance, take photographs, tell great family stories, or know your way around a toolbox.

Your interests can become an invitation for your child to learn with you.

The Mustang student-athletes demonstrated that idea by sharing football with younger children. Parents, grandparents, caregivers, siblings, and other caring adults can do something similar by sharing their own talents and passions.

Stir Some Literacy Into It

Here's where the Cooking Up Literacy approach comes in.

Take something your child already enjoys and look for natural opportunities to add reading, writing, speaking, listening, math, problem-solving, or creativity.

If your family loves sports, read about a favorite player, calculate scores and statistics, learn new vocabulary, create plays on paper, or have your child write about the best part of the game.

If you love cooking, read a recipe together, measure ingredients, compare nutrition labels, learn where foods come from, or have your child create a family recipe card.

If you enjoy gardening, read seed packets, measure plant growth, keep a garden journal, or research what different plants need to grow.

If you're passionate about music, read lyrics, explore the history of a musical style, count beats, or encourage your child to write a song.

The activity may change.

The opportunity doesn't:

Spend time together. Talk. Ask questions. Read something. Try something. Learn something.

Give Your Time and Talents, Too

There's another lesson families can take from the Mustang student-athletes.

They gave something they already possessed—their time, experience, and passion for football—to encourage children coming behind them.

As parents and caregivers, we can do the same.

Giving back doesn't always require money or a formal program. Sometimes what children need most is access to an adult willing to say:

“Come here. Let me show you something I love to do.”

That moment can build confidence, strengthen relationships, spark curiosity, and create opportunities for learning.

And when older youth share their abilities with younger children, something else happens: they begin to see themselves as leaders.

This Week's Cooking Up Literacy Family Challenge

Choose one thing you love to do and invite your child to do it with you.

Then add one simple literacy activity.

Play it. Read about it. Talk about it. Write about it. Teach it.

Don't worry about making it feel like school.

The goal is connection.

Because literacy isn't only something children practice in classrooms. It grows through conversations, experiences, questions, stories, relationships—and time spent with people who care about them.

This summer, Mustang Football Club student-athletes shared football with younger children and gave future players an opportunity to play, learn, and grow.

What will you share with your child?

Whatever your talent or passion may be, stir a little learning into it.