Cooking Day Delivers Full Stomachs, and Hearts
One of Echoing Hills’ core values is the right to choose. We take choice very seriously. After all, God created each one of us with free will.
Feedback from their county board, parents, and students, team members at echoingU of Southwest Ohio helped them decide it was time to incorporate even more choice in their programming.
Team members met with each student of echoingU to ask what they would like to see available. Based on their responses, they created new, daily options. These options are available at the end of each day and include: learning more about the Bible, exercising, cooking, playing, socializing, learning about different cultures, and Tik Tok dances. Offering these choices creates excitement for the students and an opportunity to work on goals for their Individualized Support Plans (ISP).
These daily options are so popular they have been turned into an enrichment day. A day that is devoted to fun, focusing on one activity for students to enjoy. Recently, they hosted a day focused on their favorite activity, cooking!
The morning started with breakfast – microwaved pancakes and sausage. Moving on to lunch, they enjoyed hot dogs, crockpot macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie fluff, Oreo cake pops, and iced coffee. Students had a big part in selecting the items they enjoyed that day and took turns prepping, cooking, serving their friends, and cleaning up.
Pauletta Wessel, Habilitation Coordinator at echoingU of Southwest Ohio, shares they focused on simple meals, easy to replicate at home. For her, teaching cooking is important because “The goal is to have students be as independent as they can be. Cooking is one part of this, and we want to teach them the basics.” She goes on to say, “Activities like this show students what they are capable of, helping them with confidence and self-advocacy.”
What did the students think of their cooking day?
“Working together and being together like a family is what I liked best” – V
“I liked eating it!” – I
”Making breakfast was the best, even though I got too full!” – M
