Amanda, a middle-school teacher, uses picture-based visual recipes and the Autism Helpers curriculum to teach cooking skills to students with disabilities. The recipes live in laminated folders with steps, vocabulary cards, and written versions, and most work in a microwave. She embeds math, shopping, and social skills into the cooking process.
The week before Thanksgiving break can be complete chaos in any classroom, but it can also be a time for your students to shine using Visual Recipes in the classroom. I'm Amanda, and I've been a middle school transition teacher for over 20 years, and today I'm excited to share with you how to survive the chaos and help students succeed in the kitchen while using Visual Recipes. I use everything from laminated file folders to help organize my lessons to actual grocery store ads to help keep learning fun and engaging during this busy time of year. Before we can even turn on a stove or open a recipe book, it's important to break the process down into smaller pieces for our students. Some of them have never helped in the kitchen. We pre-teach skills like washing hands, identifying Kitchen tools, understanding basic cooking vocabulary, practicing simple measuring, safety rules, identifying something is hot or cold can turn into a whole nother lesson. And this structure can help every student and teacher feel confident in the kitchen. To introduce these pre-cooking skills, I use the Autism Helpers Life Skills Curriculum in my classroom, especially during cooking lessons. This curriculum is designed to build functional, real-world independence for students with disabilities. Before each cooking task, I use the Autism Helpers assessments and task analysis to figure out what skills each student needs. Then I introduce the skills through pre-teaching, like learning safe knife skills, um, how to measure, task cards, visual supports, file folder activities, which are some of my favorites. Structured practice stations. This prepares students so the actual cooking activity is successful and not overwhelming. So what are visual recipes? Visual recipes are step-by-step directions that use pictures instead of written text. They can help students with autism, language delays, even emerging readers follow a recipe successfully and independently. After the pre-teaching strategies, I teach a lesson using grocery ads from a local grocery store. I have students choose items that they would, um, need to make a Thanksgiving dinner. They look at the prices. They might compare options, create a shopping list based on a set budget. This activity supports independence while teaching functional math skills such as using a calculator, That's a great thing to incorporate during a lesson like this. I have even set up a store in the past where students can purchase the items, create social stories in which they can be the customer, someone could be the cashier. In real life situations as well, you can even provide them with the products to use during the school— during the store. You can show them where to scan scan things. It's a great way to incorporate math into the kitchen. To keep everything as simple as possible, I use the Autism Helpers visual and adaptive recipes. These are recipes that include all levels for all types of readers and learners. They include pictures and written recipes, as well as vocabulary storage and comprehension questions at two different levels. To store my recipes, I use a very simple method. Using a manila folder. For each recipe, I print and laminate them and place them using the front, the back, and the inside of the folder. This keeps everything durable, easy to clean, and ready to use year after year. And this is a great, uh, activity to get your assistants involved, your classroom assistants, They're always happy to do things like this in my classroom. The front, I always include the visual recipe, which includes the pictures. On the back, I include the written recipe for some of our higher-level learners. The inside, I like to include the vocabulary storage that I use Velcro with that includes the items and tools and the ingredients that you're going to use for each recipe. Most of these recipes use a microwave, so even if you don't have access to a full kitchen, you can use a microwave and you teach students how to use the microwave and different tools with that. There's two different levels of comprehension questions. This one includes the written as well as the visual. For when you finish up your recipe. I love that these are functional for all types of readers. This can be a great task for your classroom assistants, like I said, to help out with as well. The lamination protects them from spills, food stains, whatever might happen in the kitchen, messy hands, because let's face it, that's going to happen when you cook with students. When we finish our recipes, it's important to We teach students the skills they need to clean up the kitchen, just like at home. They wipe down their folders, clean up their cooking area, reflect on the recipes they made. We reflect about what they liked, what they didn't like, if they were willing to try the recipe, maybe what steps were tricky for them, or what they want to cook next. That's how I use visual recipes and folders in my life skills classroom. They're durable, organized, and help students work independently while having fun with cooking. They also make the week before Thanksgiving break a little more survivable for teachers and students.
