Cooking in Life Skills
Cooking in School? (Pre-COVID)
Although I know cooking in school, is not a crazy idea, especially with all of the amazing Family and Consumer Education teachers out there (shout out to the two amazing ladies at my school... you know who you are), but it might not be something you think about doing with students with more intensive needs.
However, I am here to tell you- Pre COVID times, cooking in my classroom was one of my favorite things to do! Did it take a lot of time and was it a mess most of the time?
YES.
But, that was half of the fun! I will tell you the level of engagement of my kids SKYROCKETED when we were cooking. I had kids sitting at a table for extended periods of time with laser focus on the task at hand which was a BIG deal for some of my kids.
And, more importantly the kids were learning and practicing skills that might mean the difference between being able to make meals for themselves or depending on someone else to help them.
STOP.
Think about that... I had this realization earlier this year and it made me re-think a lot of what I do because the things you work on now, can impact the quality of life that students may have long after they leave you.
SO... cooking it is! We had a toaster oven donated to us from a teacher who was getting rid of one and we had a microwave in our room. The kids (and parents) helped brainstorm foods that the kids liked to eat and we rotated through them.
Now... Cooking During COVID...
Unfortunately, is nonexistent. While cooking in my building is now allowed, the practicality of doing so with my students while keeping them all safe, was not possible. So, I made a shift to work on pre-vocational skills- which will be a topic covered in a later post.
However, I did have some students who LOVED cooking and with students being virtual either fully or for parts of the week, I started recording myself reading visual recipes and encouraging my students and parents to make the food at home if they wanted to.
Please Enter Teachers Pay Teachers
Of course that means I needed recipes– and with my population, I needed something with pictures. So off to Teachers Pay Teachers I went (because at this point who has time to make something as beautiful as what I can find on there...). One of my favorite go to shops there is Breezy Special Ed. She has SO many different resources and I especially loved her visual recipes which I have used this school year.
Now what?
So, recipes in hand I needed to figure out a good way to give my students the instruction and sustain engagement with them. I sat down and based on previous video experiences with virtual learning I decided videos were the way to go. I knew I had to be in the video, doing actions to help practice and retain information, and practicing language skills. So off to talk to my computer like a crazy person I went...
The final products
The final products are 3-10 minute videos of myself reading the recipe of the week while doing actions associated with the step and practicing language too. I do a new one each week, so these playlists will keep growing.
PLEASE USE THESE IF THEY ARE HELPFUL TO YOU!!!
There is no shame in using something someone else has made especially if it fits what you and your students need. I found there was a gap in what I wanted and needed, so I just made the videos myself, but I am hoping others can save some time/energy and use what I have done or at least give them an idea of what they want to do (or not do...)!
Visit Breezy Special Ed's TPT page to get your hard copies for your students, and you can find the videos I have made to go along with some of the recipes (still working my way through what I have bought so far) below!
ParksTeaches YouTube Channel (where you can find all of the videos I have so far)
Breakfast Recipes Playlist
Main Dishes Playlist
Dessert Recipes Playlist
Thanksgiving Recipes Playlist
Keep calm and cook on
I'll leave you with this:
- Consider cooking in your classroom.
- Consider engaging your families in cooking at home.
- You never know what kind of an impact cooking skills might have on students after they leave you.
- Start off small and enjoy & embrace the mess!
-Maria
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Cover Photo by Brooke Lark / Unsplash