October Visual Recipes
October is a great time to incorporate cooking into your Special Education classroom. Visual recipes allow students to participate in simple cooking activities. Cooking can help students practice math skills such as measuring, reading skills by reading recipes, and following directions.
Resources in this post
Instant digital downloads · All included in SSE Classroom
Visuals are so important for students with special needs, particularly those that are non-readers. Visuals help students understand concepts and takes the guesswork out of things.
I have always loved to do simple cooking activities with my students. Halloween time is a fun time to do food activities, such as making Oreo spiders or pumpkin face clementines (pictured above)! Things like pizza bagels (pictured above), s’mores, cookies, etc. are also a great way for students to practice math, reading, and direction following skills. Cooking is also a great way to teach students life skills, such as grocery shopping, washing dishes, etc. I always love finding new recipes I can use with students to engage them in cooking. Check out this SSE blog post to learn about what skills students can learn when cooking in the classroom.
Quick tip: before you spend your own money on ingredients for classroom recipes, ask your administration if the costs for the ingredients can be covered. At my previous school, if I needed certain supplies for a learning activity, I would send a link to my principal from Amazon, Walmart, etc., and she would use the school budget to order them. Every school is different, but it doesn’t hurt to ask!
Make sure to also be aware of any food allergies in your classroom.
Read on to learn some ideas you can incorporate into your classroom in October! These recipes all come from the Simply Special Ed October visual recipes pack.
Monster Cookie Shake
This recipe is for a fun milkshake! Students can learn how to make a “Monster Cookie Shake” by using vanilla ice cream, cool whip, milk, green food coloring, and Oreo cookies.
Students will add vanilla ice cream and green food coloring to a blender. They will also add the milk. You may need to assist students with using the blender. Once everything is blended, they can pour it into cups and add cool whip and crushed oreos!
Each of the recipes in the pack include a page showing the ingredients with step-by-step directions, with matching visuals. They also include a sequencing page, where students can write out the steps if appropriate. You can also have students cut and paste the directions in the correct boxes according to the recipe.
The recipes also include a page where students can circle which ingredients they used. This can be used as a quick assessment to check for understanding after you complete the recipe. Finally, the recipes also include a page for students to demonstrate their opinions of the food. They can choose a picture to describe how it tasted, and if they would make it again.
The cooking activities can be done in a variety of ways. You can choose to do these activities as a whole group lesson (depending on how many students you have), in small groups, or individually. I currently work as a Special Education teacher for preschool students, where I work 1:1 with students. These visual recipes are a perfect activity for the student and I to do during our sessions. They are easy to follow for the students and don’t have a crazy long list of ingredients!
Grilled Cheese
Who doesn’t love a grilled cheese sandwich? October is the perfect time to make a delicious grilled cheese and maybe pair it with some soup to warm you up as the weather starts to cool down.
This simple grilled cheese recipe is just a few steps for students to follow: toast some bread, put cheese on the bread, put it on a plate, and toast it in a toaster oven. Depending on the age and needs of the student/s, you may need to assist them with the toaster and/or toaster oven. However, students can independently count out two pieces of bread and add the cheese.
You can even use this as a fractions lesson for an extension activity! Demonstrate and discuss how you can cut the grilled cheese into halves and fourths.
Pumpkin Pie Cup
Pumpkin is a staple flavor of October! For this recipe, you will need instant pudding, milk, vanilla wafer cookies, cups, and cool whip. Students can take turns pouring the mix into a large bowl. They then pour in one cup of milk into the bowl and mix. When I have done cooking activities in small groups, it helped to have students each take a turn mixing with a mixing spoon. You can have students count to 5 or 10, mix for that number of seconds, and pass it to the next person.
Students can then spoon the mixture into small cups. They can also crush up the vanilla wafer cookies by giving them each a Ziploc bag and having them break them up with their hands or a rolling pin. They can finish by adding the crushed cookies and whipped topping on their pumpkin pie cups.
Harvest Mix
This recipe slightly resembles the snack called “puppy chow”. For this harvest mix, you will need white chocolate chips, yellow and red food coloring, Rice Chex cereal, pumpkin pie spice, and a cookie sheet.
You will start out by melting the white chocolate chips in the microwave. You can then have students mix in the food coloring to the melted chocolate chips. Students can take turns measuring out and pouring in 5 cups of cereal and mixing everything. They can then mix in the pumpkin pie mix. Finally, spread the mixture on a cookie sheet and let it cool before eating. This can be a fun class snack as a special treat!
I always encourage students to at least try a bite of something new, especially if they are picky eaters. If they at least try a bite, even if they don’t like it, I praise them for trying!
My student that I did this activity with enjoyed the cereal and white chocolate taste, but did not like the pumpkin taste. After making the mix (pictured above), we went through each ingredient on the accompanying worksheet. If we used it, he colored it in purple. This was a great way to assess his recalling skills. We also completed the “how was it?” sheet (pictured above) that I sent home with him. He liked part of it but said he would not make it again! That’s okay, because we had fun cooking together and I was proud of him for trying something new.
These visual recipes are the perfect activity to do with your students in October. Happy cooking!
