Too many cooks in the kitchen...

I have spent a lot of time this week preparing for next weeks cooking project, so I thought, why not blog about it too?

We have one new cooking project each week and our students will have one day, Tuesday through Thursday, where it is their day in the kitchen.  We use a fantastic cooking curriculum created by PCI called, "Cooking to Learn" and "Cooking to Learn 2" for ordering information go here:

PCI Cooking to Learn

It is a great curriculum that allows student to cook projects both as a group or as an individual.  The curriculum provides both a text and a picture with text option for each recipe and comprehension worksheets to accompany each project.  We love it and have been happily using it for the last 5 years in our program.

Sometimes, the students want to learn how to make something that is not in either of the Cooking to Learn books.  So, we are charged to recreate the many wonderful options the PCI curriculum provides for our students on our own.  No problem, right?!?  So this week, as we wrap up our unit on Microwave Cooking, our students wanted to learn to make Cheese Nachos.  With this recipe, and all others we create on our own, I do my best to resemble the structures the PCI curriculum sets up.  So the supplies are listed at the top, broken down into "Food Items" and "Cooking Items".  This particular form of the recipe provides the rest of the instructions in written format.

We also have found that receiving a recipe with EVERY step on it can be a bit overwhelming for our students who struggle with attention and focus.  So...we have created note cards for the recipe as well.
Text only for students who require that level of accomodation...

And text with pictures for those who require that level... These are made with pictures from Boardmaker.

We have also started creating video models of each recipe to provide additional level of visual support.  We find this method to be especially helpful for our students who are on the Autism spectrum as it give them a foundation of knowledge and an understanding of expectations.  Those that first displayed behaviors while cooking in the kitchen, now watch a video and no longer display behaviors.  I do some minor editing in iMovie and throw the video up on Youtube, with the hopes that even after leaving the transition center, students will go back and use these videos in their personal living environments.  Here is a link to this weeks video.
Microwave Cheese Nachos

We see the most successes when putting these supports in place for our students.  Its a lot of preparation ahead of time, when doing a new recipe, but once you put these items together, you can use them from year to year.

Do your students cook?  What supports do you provide them?

Come to the edge with me...
Mackenzie