I always leave some cakes without icing/cream as James and Charlie are much more likely to eat them plain - we let them choose. Charlie ate 4 cakes!! They were very nice!
Showing posts with label Cooking Activites/Recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking Activites/Recipes. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Butterfly Blackberry Cakes
My mum picked us some blackberries from the back of her garden. I already picked quite a few a couple of weeks ago. They are really early, the other places we pick them are not so ripe yet, but we keep checking! Although we've kind of had 'summer holidays' we have done a bit of informal butterfly work following on from the Big Butterfly Count and I picked up a butterfly cake mould yesterday so today we used it and the blackberries.
We just added the blackberries to an ordinary sponge cake recipe and then we did one cake in the mould and made fairy cakes with the rest. We made the filling with whipped cream, about a tablespoon or so of pureed and sieved blackberries and a tablespoon of sugar. This is an old whisk from my childhood. The boys really like using it so I'm glad I rescued it!
I always leave some cakes without icing/cream as James and Charlie are much more likely to eat them plain - we let them choose. Charlie ate 4 cakes!! They were very nice!
I always leave some cakes without icing/cream as James and Charlie are much more likely to eat them plain - we let them choose. Charlie ate 4 cakes!! They were very nice!
Friday, 22 July 2011
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
James enjoyed making these today....
he was happy to try the chocolate,
but not so keen on the strawberry!
Friday, 15 July 2011
Strawberry Sensory Success
We have been spending some time each week focusing on a particular fruit. I have loads to post about apples which we have been working on for months but we've now moved onto strawberries so I'm starting with that!
The boys are not good at eating fruit and vegetables. We've made what we consider to be huge steps forwards over the past months. To most people it probably looks minimal. Charlie is eating apples and trying new fruits regularly. James has been eating carrots and sometimes a sprout or piece of broccoli with a roast dinner! It's all very wonderful!
We approach this with a very relaxed attitude, there's no expectation that they eat what's put in front of them, we play, sing, cook and explore the fruit with all our senses. If someone takes a bite, we go really over the top with praise!
Today we made strawberry smoothies. I find the boys really like the smoothie maker as it gives rewards that Charlie in particular finds pleasing - not the smoothie - the really loud noise and the great visual stimulation! The first time I made smoothies with him he danced around the kitchen! Today, he was brilliant, signing please to press the button again and again. (I purposely kept switching it off to keep the communication going). His smoothie was very well blended after this surprise communication game!
We then led onto some time spent sitting at the table with the smoothies and some more strawberries. We listened and watched several different 'Strawberry Fields' videos on YouTube, listened to the story, 'The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear' and did a bit of sensory play and hand massage with some strawberry scented soap and Lush strawberry massage bar.
Charlie sat with me doing this for a good 45 minutes and ate quite a bit of strawberry!
The boys are not good at eating fruit and vegetables. We've made what we consider to be huge steps forwards over the past months. To most people it probably looks minimal. Charlie is eating apples and trying new fruits regularly. James has been eating carrots and sometimes a sprout or piece of broccoli with a roast dinner! It's all very wonderful!
We approach this with a very relaxed attitude, there's no expectation that they eat what's put in front of them, we play, sing, cook and explore the fruit with all our senses. If someone takes a bite, we go really over the top with praise!
Today we made strawberry smoothies. I find the boys really like the smoothie maker as it gives rewards that Charlie in particular finds pleasing - not the smoothie - the really loud noise and the great visual stimulation! The first time I made smoothies with him he danced around the kitchen! Today, he was brilliant, signing please to press the button again and again. (I purposely kept switching it off to keep the communication going). His smoothie was very well blended after this surprise communication game!
We then led onto some time spent sitting at the table with the smoothies and some more strawberries. We listened and watched several different 'Strawberry Fields' videos on YouTube, listened to the story, 'The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear' and did a bit of sensory play and hand massage with some strawberry scented soap and Lush strawberry massage bar.
Charlie sat with me doing this for a good 45 minutes and ate quite a bit of strawberry!
Rainbow Cookies
We tried to make this slice and bake recipe, but this is how they ended up!
I chilled the dough overnight and it was still not stiff enough to roll out or slice so in the end, after I managed to layer the colours, we just put spoonfuls of dough on the trays. It wasn't a complete disaster. I think they were still quite effective, James worked really hard making the dough and Charlie enjoyed them, repeatedly asking for more. We might give it another go next week with a different recipe.
I chilled the dough overnight and it was still not stiff enough to roll out or slice so in the end, after I managed to layer the colours, we just put spoonfuls of dough on the trays. It wasn't a complete disaster. I think they were still quite effective, James worked really hard making the dough and Charlie enjoyed them, repeatedly asking for more. We might give it another go next week with a different recipe.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Rainbow Waffles
I found a new blog this week with a lot of rainbow activities for us to try, http://shareandremember.blogspot.com/search/label/rainbow. I'm sure we will try some more of the things here but the activities that really spoke to me were the rainbow circles,
and the rainbow waffles!
Last year I made a rainbow birthday cake for James and Charlie's 8th birthday so I had all the food colourings in the cupboard. I also have a circular waffle iron so it just had to be done really! Yesterday seemed a good day to do this as Gaby was home (strike day) and I new she'd want to join in. She helped me make the waffles and then we all sat down to eat them...
James was not terribly keen....
...but Charlie finished them all off!!
and the rainbow waffles!
Last year I made a rainbow birthday cake for James and Charlie's 8th birthday so I had all the food colourings in the cupboard. I also have a circular waffle iron so it just had to be done really! Yesterday seemed a good day to do this as Gaby was home (strike day) and I new she'd want to join in. She helped me make the waffles and then we all sat down to eat them...
James was not terribly keen....
...but Charlie finished them all off!!
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Birthday
What on earth do you buy boys like ours for their birthday?! It seems to get harder every year to think of something 'new'. I really didn't know what to do this year and then I came across this.....
....they both seemed quite pleased and intrigued with it which is a start. It's very simple, they just have to put the marbles in the top and then they musically run down the tree. I think it could also be quite good for communication if we withhold the marbles!
We were on holiday on the boys' actual birthday so I didn't go for full on cake baking and decorating this year. However, I do feel that it's my job to make them a birthday cake so I did this instead. I got the idea from 'Great Healthy Food for Vegetarian Kids' by Nicola Graimes. Charlie liked it but James clearly prefers bought cornflake cakes to mum's homemade ones!
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Planes and Helicopters
These are some plane/helicopter activities we've done recently for our transport theme.
A plane sensory box made from a blue sheet, cotton wall balls and toy planes and helicopters...
I found myself talking about little fluffy clouds so put that on the iPad whilst Charlie was playing with the box. He was happy to play with the box as it was whereas James needs more focus so I tend to ask him to put the planes in and out which he is happier with.
Some very messy shaving foam clouds and planes!
Helicopter Potato Prints (Dad's idea)
We've also finally got our display board up which is great as its important that we have visual clues as to what we are learning about around.
We also found a couple of great songs and rhymes which the boys really enjoyed doing. We came across loads of versions of 'I'm a little Airplane' to the music of 'I'm a little teapot'. The words were not quite right for the lads in any of them so we rewrote it to suit our language needs and put in signs. We also found an instrumental to accompany it on YouTube on the iPad which really is turning out to be a very useful thing to have.
The other rhyme we used, 'The Airplane' was from here and we used that one pretty much as it was. The boys loved these so we are keeping them going through our transport theme and adding more in as we go.
A plane sensory box made from a blue sheet, cotton wall balls and toy planes and helicopters...
I found myself talking about little fluffy clouds so put that on the iPad whilst Charlie was playing with the box. He was happy to play with the box as it was whereas James needs more focus so I tend to ask him to put the planes in and out which he is happier with.
Some very messy shaving foam clouds and planes!
Helicopter Potato Prints (Dad's idea)
Some play dough helicopters, I made the helicopters and got them to put the blades (lolly sticks) in....
Pastry planes! We have the tiniest plane cutter so made these little pastry cutouts.....
We've also finally got our display board up which is great as its important that we have visual clues as to what we are learning about around.
We also found a couple of great songs and rhymes which the boys really enjoyed doing. We came across loads of versions of 'I'm a little Airplane' to the music of 'I'm a little teapot'. The words were not quite right for the lads in any of them so we rewrote it to suit our language needs and put in signs. We also found an instrumental to accompany it on YouTube on the iPad which really is turning out to be a very useful thing to have.
I'm a little Airplane
I'm a little Airplane
(sign plane)
Watch me fly
(sign watch and fly)
From Down on the Ground
(point to down)
To up so High
(point up)
First I get all revved up
(put arms out to side)
Then I can fly
(Start moving slowly)
Off the Runway
(move faster)
Up into the sky
(run around like a plane on tiptoes!!)
The other rhyme we used, 'The Airplane' was from here and we used that one pretty much as it was. The boys loved these so we are keeping them going through our transport theme and adding more in as we go.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Fireworks!
This is a rather late post about the stuff we did around Bonfire Night and fireworks. We've had illnesses, lost most of our pictures and then the laptop cable broke so not only is it late, but its lacking in visuals too!
We are finding one of the best resources for us is youtube! Our sons need to see something if it is to have any meaning to them so short video clips are ideal. This worked brilliantly in terms of talking about fireworks. Its hard to get them to watch anything at length but no problem with this subject - I suppose you can't really get more visually stimulating than fireworks! We tend to use video clips/images on the laptop at the same time as activities so we watched a few displays and then brought in the 'real' thing...
I found a great recipe on this website, http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chocolate_sparklers.htm, for 'Chocolate Sparklers' made out of chocolate fingers dipped in sugar strands, (no pictures I'm afraid) which was so simple to do. James enjoyed eating them as he took part and then once finished decorating them, proceeded to then remove all the decorations before he could contemplate eating them!!
We made several attempts at different craft activities. I'm trying to keep these ideas really simple. Anything too involved and lengthy is not a good idea. I'm also trying to come up with ideas based around the way the boys like to play so for Charlie it would be very sensory based and for James its more about putting things 'in' something else and threading. We made a bonfire out of lolly sticks and orange/red tissues paper. No glue involved here. We looked at a photo and tried to recreate it by piling up the lolly sticks for the base and putting the flames in the middle. We also did a firework starting with a lump of play dough and sticking pipe cleaners in. Some we made into spirals by wrapping them around a pencil, others we left as they were and we just gave the boys the options to chose which they wanted to use. Its the pictures from these activities that we lost but I do have a picture of my ancient pipe cleaners saved from my own childhood!!!!!
Continuing on the theme of threading, we made some fireworks out of cardboard tubes and tinsel. Really, really simple. Just threading the tinsel through the tube and holding it in place with an elastic band.
We used these for a rather excitable re-enactment of a bonfire and firework display! We have a wonderful rug which I found on ebay a while ago which has lights running through it, so that was the bonfire, we had our mirror ball going, loads of party poppers for the bangs, blew balloons up and then let them whiz around, 'Light My Fire' playing really loud and we ran around the 'bonfire' with the tinsel fireworks. It was a lot of fun!!
Our touchy feely sensory activity was with our coloured rice. (Again!) We just put a piece of black card on the base of our tray (I use cat litter trays) and threw handfuls of the rice in so we got the noise as well as the visual effect.
At the end of the week we went to a real display, which the boys loved. We are lucky in this respect I think, a lot of children on the autistic spectrum find this hard. It was a great display but I always find it hard to know where to look as I get as much pleasure out of watching their faces as watching the fireworks!
We are finding one of the best resources for us is youtube! Our sons need to see something if it is to have any meaning to them so short video clips are ideal. This worked brilliantly in terms of talking about fireworks. Its hard to get them to watch anything at length but no problem with this subject - I suppose you can't really get more visually stimulating than fireworks! We tend to use video clips/images on the laptop at the same time as activities so we watched a few displays and then brought in the 'real' thing...
I found a great recipe on this website, http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chocolate_sparklers.htm, for 'Chocolate Sparklers' made out of chocolate fingers dipped in sugar strands, (no pictures I'm afraid) which was so simple to do. James enjoyed eating them as he took part and then once finished decorating them, proceeded to then remove all the decorations before he could contemplate eating them!!
We made several attempts at different craft activities. I'm trying to keep these ideas really simple. Anything too involved and lengthy is not a good idea. I'm also trying to come up with ideas based around the way the boys like to play so for Charlie it would be very sensory based and for James its more about putting things 'in' something else and threading. We made a bonfire out of lolly sticks and orange/red tissues paper. No glue involved here. We looked at a photo and tried to recreate it by piling up the lolly sticks for the base and putting the flames in the middle. We also did a firework starting with a lump of play dough and sticking pipe cleaners in. Some we made into spirals by wrapping them around a pencil, others we left as they were and we just gave the boys the options to chose which they wanted to use. Its the pictures from these activities that we lost but I do have a picture of my ancient pipe cleaners saved from my own childhood!!!!!
Continuing on the theme of threading, we made some fireworks out of cardboard tubes and tinsel. Really, really simple. Just threading the tinsel through the tube and holding it in place with an elastic band.
We used these for a rather excitable re-enactment of a bonfire and firework display! We have a wonderful rug which I found on ebay a while ago which has lights running through it, so that was the bonfire, we had our mirror ball going, loads of party poppers for the bangs, blew balloons up and then let them whiz around, 'Light My Fire' playing really loud and we ran around the 'bonfire' with the tinsel fireworks. It was a lot of fun!!
Our touchy feely sensory activity was with our coloured rice. (Again!) We just put a piece of black card on the base of our tray (I use cat litter trays) and threw handfuls of the rice in so we got the noise as well as the visual effect.
At the end of the week we went to a real display, which the boys loved. We are lucky in this respect I think, a lot of children on the autistic spectrum find this hard. It was a great display but I always find it hard to know where to look as I get as much pleasure out of watching their faces as watching the fireworks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)