October 27, 2022

Learning While Baking Holiday Cookies

The holidays are a great time of year to bake with your children. Not only are we spending quality time with our children, but we can incorporate numerous therapeutic exercises while baking. First choose your family cookie recipe, buy your ingredients, and get to work!!!

Enhancing Specific Learning Objectives:

Physical Therapy

Animal walks to get ingredients that are scattered throughout the kitchen squatting to pick up ingredients from low shelves/floor and putting it on countertops. Sit or stand on pillow while mixing.

Occupational Therapy

Roll the dough between two hands or use a rolling pin. Hold the bowl while mixing, using measuring cups to scoop out ingredients. Pinch sprinkles to decorate Use two hands to push down on cookie cutters.

Speech Therapy

Emphasize sequencing terms such as first we mix the flour and sugar, then we add the eggs. Baking is great for learning action words (such as mixing, cracking, stirring, pouring, etc.) and objects (such as mixing bowl, mixer, spatula, cookie sheet, cookie cutter, sprinkles, etc.) Reviewing the steps helps children learn to answer questions as well (Did we add the eggs yet?, What did we do first? Did we pour the milk into the bowl or mix the flour and sugar?, etc.)

Educational Goals

Count the number of ingredients. Talk about the colors of the ingredients and decorations (eggs are white outside and yellow inside, blue icing or green sprinkles?)Pick out different cookie cutter shapes (i.e., circles, diamonds) and sizes (i.e., a big circle, a small square)