Cooking

Le's face it, our students and even ourselves love eating! What better motivator to teach new skills than using food! However, due to difficulties in receptive language, expressive language, and motor abilities, a little creativity is required to help our students create culinary masterpieces!

Modify Cooking Materials

All students can cook, but not all materials are made for our students. The following are ideas we can put in place to help support our student's culinary success. But first thing first, don't forget wheelchair trays! This is the easiest way to bring material closer to students on a stable surface.

Hair Roller Handles

Build up handles with hair roller foams, pool noodles, or simply wrap it up and tape it. These will help our students with gripping utensils.

Dycem Placemat

Non-stick surfaces such as Dycem, velcros, or even yoga mats. This can be particularly useful in preventing spills or flying bowls across tables.

Powerlink

Powerlinks are amazing assistive technology that allow students with limited motor abilities and students who are developing cause and effect understanding to also participate in cooking activities. A blender, mixer, food process, etc are just a few cooking appliances that can be used with a Powerlnk. Please see the Technology section for information how to use Powerlink.

Using Labels

Use labels to help students increase independence with students finding materials and putting them away in the appropriate place.

Getting Creative

Get creative to use kitchen tools in new ways! We used a a rolling pin to crush cookies to create a crust for our parfaits. Egg beaters (bringing them back!) are wonderful for mixing instead of a whisk.