3 Important Skills to Target When Making Hot Chocolate

Did you know that there are 3 important skills to target when making hot chocolate with your students? If you’ve been around long, you know my passion for cooking in the classroom and following visual recipes. Cooking and following recipes helps students work on TONS of important life skills! Winter is the PERFECT time to try this delicious hot chocolate recipe FOR FREE with your class!

Let’s talk about 3 important skills to target when making hot chocolate with your students. You can find the hot chocolate recipe also included in Visual Recipes for Drinks.

#1-FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS

The first skill to target when making hot chocolate with your students is following directions. This is an extremely important life skill for all students to learn, but especially for students with cross-categorical disabilities. Try following the recipe together as a class but giving students their own copy of the recipe as well. I liked to have students point to each step that we were on when cooking in my classroom. This way, I knew who was following along and who needed help.

#2-INDEPENDENCE

Next, let’s talk about independence. Um… could there be a more important skill for our students to learn?! When students are following a recipe like making hot chocolate, they are doing the work. Hence, we are following the recipe as a CLASS but they are making it on their OWN. You should NEVER do it for them. They have their own mug, packet of hot cocoa and marshmallows in front of them. We pass the milk around and take turns pouring it INDEPENDENTLY. I make sure they come to the microwave to open the door INDEPENDENTLY and set the timer. We discuss safety rules with the microwave because the mug will be hot. Age doesn’t matter when cooking in the classroom. The end goal is all the same-we want independence for them at home. (Of course this means certain parameters and supervision depending what tools are needed).

#3-FINE MOTOR

The final skill to target when making hot chocolate is fine motor skills. Most all of my students had poor fine motor skills when I was teaching. I loved making this hot chocolate recipe in the winter. Why? Well because my students got to practice so many fine motor skills such as:

pouring liquid into a cup
squirting whipped cream
using the pincher grasp to pick up mini marshmallows
opening a microwave
pushing small buttons on a microwave
using a handle when drinking out of a mug
Stirring with a spoon

COOKING RULES

Whenever we would cook in my classroom, I did have certain rules in place. We always had to wash our hands before beginning a recipe (hello life skill!). In addition, we had to keep our hands in our lap while the materials were being passed out. Finally-and this might actually be the most important-they HAD to try the final product. Even if it was one sip or one bite. At the beginning of the year, we discussed a lot about not knowing if you like something until you try it. I don’t know about you but I always had plenty of picky-eaters in my class. Cooking in the classroom can help with exploring new textures, food and drinks that they may not try at home.

The best part? When you grab the FREE hot chocolate recipe you can grab additional visual recipes for 15% off!