Lessons From Lifeskills: Baker, Baker, Cookie Maker!

This month our Unique Learning System monthly theme is Physical Science. We love anything science-related in our room, so this unit is especially fun! The second chapter in our unit was all about baking cookies. We were able to tie in so many functional skills while reading about Jonah and his baking adventure. We covered physical changes, chemical changes, cooking safety, how to read a recipe, fine motor practice (using different kitchen tools), social/communication skills, and vocational tasks (cleaning up) ALL IN ONE LESSON! Gotta love that!

We started out by reading about a boy named Jonah who bakes sugar cookies. We talked about kitchen safety, using a recipe and how physical science applies to cooking while practicing asking and answering wh- questions.

Next we headed into the kitchen to make cookies of our own! I adapt all of our recipes to increase independence for my kids who need visual clues to read. We work through the ingredients tools and recipe steps before we get cooking.

We read each step of our recipe carefully then talked about ~~and sniffed~~ the different ingredients.

We got to work preparing our butter- we needed to microwave it for a few seconds to soften it up to mix it with the sugar.

We carefully measured our ingredients...

Then we mixed them together, making sure we practiced kitchen safety when using the hand mixer.

We made sure to take turns, and everyone lent a hand!

The peers did a great job helping our students complete each step of the recipe. As always, I am so impressed by the natural way they prompt and interact with my students!