One of my absolute FAVORITE holiday activities is our thanksgiving cooking lesson. While we don’t focus on cooking the WHOLE meal. We each help with the little pieces & EVERYONE HAS TO TRY EVERYTHING! It’s a fun way to get everyone involved and also help us meet our goals to try novel foods, and let families know what foods they may like for the holiday.
First we make cards to invite support staff to thanksgiving. They can be a super simple coloring page with a note attached, made on the computer for kids working on devices, or just a handwritten note. The cards make others feel special, and the kids love delivering them to staff. We invite our principals, OT, PT, and speech.
Next we send home a note asking for donations from parents. This year I just had parents check off what they wanted to send it. It is NO PRESSURE. We supply whatever is left over. We especially ask for any special tradition type foods to be sent in. One of my students said his favorite part of thanksgiving is his Mom’s special fudge. She sent it in! If you put a note in the teachers room, others may want to donate to your feast too. Our school loves getting involved!
On the day of the feast we start prepping before lunchtime. OT and Speech push in all of their services on this day and help with setting the table & warming up food.
MOST of our food is ALREADY COOKED. My amazing para brought in a huge cooked turkey and parents sent in sides. All the kids help with warming up the food putting things in bowls, mixing, and adding things like butter and toppings.
Once the table is set and everything is heated it is time to eat!
We have our menu both in front of us and on our board. We try each food one by one, rate it with a happy or sad face, and move on to the next food. Staff takes data on if the student touches to lips, licks, swallows, or just tolerates on plate. This data sheet was made by amazing behaviorist (thanks Amy!)! The visuals also help the kids though the process. We call this “tasty tasty!” Our kids are used to the visuals and know they have to taste or tolerate everything in front of them.
As we go through, we display the votes on our board to see how many like and don’t like the food before moving on to the next menu item. It’s great having a visual! After the meal we will count the votes and make a bar graph together on the board. It’s also fun for staff who donated to come in and see how the kids liked everything!
We have the kids keep EVERYTHING on their plate the whole time. They don’t have to eat it all. This is a huge tolerance task because my kids like to dump everything they don’t like in the trash. We use lots of reinforcers and even break out the iPads if needed!
While this activity is SO MUCH fun for kids and staff it can be a lot of work! The more hands you have on deck the better, especially for picky kids! I love sending home the data sheets and seeing how impressed the parents are with their kids trying new things. The practice also helps family thanksgiving go a lot smoother!
What do you do to prep your kids for thanksgiving?
