EPISODE 35

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:05] CL: Hello and welcome to This Speech Life, an audio course and podcast from SpeechTherapyPD.com, exploring all things related to school-based SLP practice. I'm your host, Caitlin Lopez, MS, CCC-SLP, a school-based SLP with 10 years of experience. In each episode, we will cover three need-to-know aspects of that episode topic, two resources related to the topic, and one actionable strategy for tomorrow.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:35] CL: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of This Speech Life. I am Caitlin Lopez, a school-based SLP and the host. I am just so excited to have Ms. Monica Donoso on as our first repeat guest. Before we get into it tonight, I have just a few announcements or housekeeping reminders. The first being that at the conclusion of today's course, please log into your course portal and complete all modules, especially the one entitled Quiz, to make sure that you get your live credit, and please do that by end of day today. 

All right, if you have any questions, please pop them into the chat or the Q&A box. If you have any questions or comments for Monica and can make sure to ask her at the appropriate times. All right, like I said, I'm so excited to introduce to all of you, if you don't know her already, the fabulous Monica Donoso. She was on our podcast before talking about how to support grad students and supervision. I'm really excited to have her talk about all things cooking. She uses cooking a lot in her therapy. I couldn't wait to have her talk about it, because this is something that I want to start doing in my own sessions. She has a lot of really great tips for that. 

Before we begin, I would just want to introduce her to all of you, Monica M. Donoso earned her master's degree in communicative disorders from California State University, Fullerton, in 2004. She is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and has worked in the school setting for 17 years. She has also worked privately at various clinics in Orange County. She is literacy and play-based therapist by nature. Recently, she was awarded a grant to promote diversity through literacy-based therapy. Her focus is also on mentoring graduate students to advance their clinical and therapeutic skills. She lives with her husband and two teenage boys in Southern California. 

I had the privilege of actually meeting Monica and becoming her friend in real life. I started following her on Instagram and then we became real life friends. I can honestly say she is who she is that you see on Instagram. If you don't follow her already, you have to by the end of today. Then just a couple more housekeeping items. I'm going to report our disclosures. 

I'm Caitlin Lopez. I am the host of This Speech Life podcast and I receive compensation for this episode from SpeechTherapyPD.com. Monica Donoso also will receive an honorarium for appearing as a guest on this episode of This Speech Life from SpeechTherapyPD.com. She's also an affiliate of Live Love Speech, which she will talk about how she utilizes their cooking materials in this episode. All right. Monica, thank you so much for agreeing to put a little pause in your busy life to join us this afternoon. I really appreciate it. 

[0:03:44] MD: Yes. I'm happy to be here. 

[0:03:46] CL: All right. Let's just jump right in. What are three things that we need to know about utilizing cooking for therapy? 

[0:03:55] MD: That it's easy to start with. Start small. When I first started cooking with my students, I was doing pancakes. That's the pancake mix and water. I started really small and I knew that I wanted to do that, at that time I was working with more high-needs students. I felt like, ÒOkay, I want to do something functional. I want to do something with them.Ó I started doing it like just every couple of months or something we do that and I bring in like bananas and blueberries and chocolate chips. Nobody wants the bananas. Nobody wants banana pancakes. None of these kids wanted that. 

They always wanted the chocolate chips. They did not want to try the blueberry. That's what I would do. I had a skillet that my mom had given me. I was like, ÒI'm going to take this to work.Ó When I first moved to my house, my stove wasn't working. I started cooking on a skillet, I borrowed my mom's. Then now I just keep it at school like I don't even bring it home. I started just really easy. Then what happened too is I would do summer school. In summer school, if anybody teaches summer school, you want to have fun, like therapy is in my opinion, the best part. 

I had another sped teacher, Mrs. Clark, who, you know, we decided to go all in and we would make salsa. She like had a garden full of ingredients. We also did, I think that summer like fruit salad. I could just see like practicing with kids. I am cutting. I need the knife or you want strawberries or blueberries, making it functional for them, a cantaloupe like, going over vocabulary words like in different things that is so functional for them, that I saw like I need to do this more basically. It was probably I started doing it more when I came to my last district. It was probably like 15 years ago and everything, so like I said, I started small. 

Then as I've grown in my cooking like this year, I did waffles with same mix, same pancake mix, but they had to bring eggs. I have to bring something else or, I think oil or something. There's just things now, I keep in my speech room that I know I'm going to use again. I've done s'mores or something. My sister, somebody was getting rid of like a George Foreman grill, those were so popular, I mean, I donÕt know when was, but I was like, she's getting rid of it. I'm like, ÒI want it. I'll take it.Ó I started doing s'mores in there, too, as like of an end of the year activity. I know we can't do s'mores all the time and everything, but I felt like that's something I could pull off in a speech room in a special education classroom. I felt like I can do that. 

Then like now this whole year, or this last spring I did polar bears with the visual recipes from Live Love Speech. I did dirt cups, bagel pizzas, I did a mini fruit pizzas, those were a lot of fun, leprechaun bait, Valentine. I always did like a trail mix, but now I was doing different ones and everything that were a little more fabulous. I don't know, than what I normally had done as a trail mix. I stay away from that. Definitely I stay away from any nut thing, but I'll get pretzels. I get a cereal like a Czech cereal, but definitely like I stay away from nuts, because that's a common allergy and everything we see in the schools. 

[0:07:34] CL: Awesome. Starting small is your first point. I love like you already started throwing out all these different things that you were doing. Somebody had a question, because you mentioned that you made polar bears. What is a polar bear? I mean, we all know what a polar bear is, but what is a polar bear food or recipe activity that you did? 

[0:07:52] MD: I'm trying to see if I even brought it home, but I don't think that's the one I brought, but the polar bear was from Live Love Speech, and it was just a graham cracker with frosting. You spread frosting, and then it was a marshmallow as like a nose. Then two, I think it was mini marshmallows for ears. Then I had to adapt the recipe, because I think she had actual little candy eyeballs. Of course, I couldn't find them that day or something. I just adapted it and used mini chocolate chips. I feel like you can adapt things too, when you are doing the recipes whatever you're doing it. Yeah, I don't probably have them with me, because I think I filed them into a file. IÕm trying to get more organized, as well. 

[0:08:41] CL: Awesome. I love that idea of starting small. You didn't do it every week. You just did it every couple months. I love that you started, ÒOkay, we're going to start with pancakes.Ó Like, that's a super easy thing, mix and water. Then I love that you were like, ÒOkay, let's start using it during summer school.Ó I think that's great. KK says, thank you for the description, for the polar bears. Yeah, I love that that's your first thing here is just start small. It doesn't have to be elaborate. That's great. What other tips do you have for us when we're starting out with cooking? 

[0:09:18] MD: That it's a lot of fun to cook with your students. It's more work on our side, because you have to make sure you have your ingredients depending on what you have, but I feel it's rewarding. My kids get excited about it. I mean, my students, sorry. I call them my kids. They are more engaged. They are more focused. I see that they are highly motivated to cook. They want to participate in these activities and they'll ask me, ÒMrs. Donoso, what are we cooking next?Ó I wasn't expecting that, especially when I was ambassador. I was only doing one recipe a month or two, but mostly just one. 

My students really took to it. I showed them the recipes so they each have like the recipe in front of them. I said, ÒLet's all look at the recipes. Let's see. What do you guys want to make?Ó I involved them in the process as well, because usually it's me deciding what we're going to work on and everything. But this, I gave them too some responsibilities like, let's look through them and everything and they could touch the recipes. There's always like extension activities I do if I find a book that I can use like, whether it's a penguin cookie we're making and there's a penguin book. There are a lot of literacy-based books out there. I try to pair it when I can with something else as well. Sometimes we just have time for the cooking activity. 

[0:10:47] CL: I love that idea of pairing it with a book. That idea of using, if you're doing a penguin and then bringing in a penguin book or even using it as like a follow-up activity with the book too, because I know sometimes like all to make a theme last a little longer or to make something last a little longer. I'll do a craft, but how much fun for the cooking to bring that in. Everyone likes to eat for the most part, right? 

[0:11:16] MD: We all like to eat. We do have some gluten-free kids that I think we see that a lot more now. If I know a student's gluten-free, I can prepare for it. Sometimes I don't know though and the student will advocate for himself and I'll be, ÒOh, my gosh.Ó Then I might be able to call the mom or text the mom. They're always very like open to like, ÒOh, yeah. It's okay if he has a little something,Ó but it just depends. 

Sometimes those things are a little different that we have to like pivot. But I mean, that's what we do all day long is pivot based on our kids, our students and what their needs are. I definitely think that you can cook with any age. Of course, the pancakes, you have to be careful, because of the skillet and everything, so I always make sure that's away from where we're making the pancake mix and everything, we're all taking turns. Definitely, you can address so many goals. That goes into like my third thing that we can talk about. Should we go into that? 

[0:12:20] CL: Yeah. Let's do it. 

[0:12:21] MD: Okay. The third thing is just in the word ÔrecipeÕ. We have RÕs, we have S's, we have a C that makes that S sound. Just there is so much articulation in these recipes, whatever you're doing. If you're doing a graham cracker. I mean, there's three R's right there. If we are talking about ingredients, there's another R, there's an S, frosting. You have both of them. So if my kids are older, I definitely give them another artic like sheet. Okay, you look at the recipe, you find your words that we are going to practice. 

I definitely have them practice in our activity. I mean, because just the sounds are everywhere. I feel articulation, you can address language is WH questions. Why do we wash our hands? Why we wash our fruit first? I'm always surprised about how some kids don't know that. Why we wash our fruit and everything or what do we do first in the recipe? What was the first ingredient? A lot of my kids will say like, ÒI want that thingy,Ó and they'll be talking about an apron. I'm like, ÒOh, you mean an apron? I need a apron.Ó You're building vocabulary. 

Well, doesn't your mom sometimes or do you ever see your mom or your grandma wear apron? But they don't know that's the vocabulary word to use. You have so many language opportunities in their words like, there's sequential language. What do we do first? What did we add second? The sequential language is always embedded. Then we also have vocabulary like I said, apron, ingredients, spread, measures. Some people will just say, ÒOh, I put frosting.Ó I'm like, ÒYeah, but there another word for it is spread.Ó Which to me is a more advanced vocabulary, so you're spreading. I am spreading the frosting on the front of the graham cracker. 

You have concepts. Above, let's put the marshmallow ears above the nose or let's put the eyes above and then we'll make the mouth, below. You have concepts embedded pragmatics. I mean, there is a lot of flexibility, even I will say, ÒOh, I went to like two grocery stores and I couldn't find plain cookies, so I had to be flexible and think, and I'm going to do graham crackers instead on these mini fruit pizzas. I did, because everybody took, I guess, the plain cookies. I had to be flexible. Am I going to go yell at the Target person that they're out of plain cookies? No.Ó

I have to think of what else can I use in this recipe that's going to help make it work, but definitely like, kids self-advocating and protesting they goes, ÒWell, I don't like graham crackers.Ó Okay, that's fine. You don't have to eat it. Or, ÒI don't want any fruit on mine.Ó Okay. Or you can say ÒI don't like banana,Ó or ÒI like strawberriesÓ. ÒI want strawberries and no blueberriesÓ. Definitely, those are part of functional communication. Saying your dislike and your likes. I did concepts, because we do like big and little and mini marshmallow and the larger one.

Descriptive vocabulary. After when we get to eat the mini fruit pizza, what did you like about it? What's your favorite part? Give me some of those juicy vocabulary words. Delicious. Was it sweet? Was it tasty? Because a lot of my kids will say, ÒOh, how did you like it? How was it?Ó ÒGood.Ó Good? Like, I need more words from you. I want to hear what you liked about it or what you didn't liked about it. Maybe you didn't the fruit. That's fine. You can say I liked the graham cracker, but I didn't like the fruit.

[0:16:18] CL: Man, you gave us so much. I love that. I mean, you just went through every single goal area that I could think of when it comes to language and articulation. I love that, especially the self-advocacy piece of I don't like it, I don't want this. The planning piece of asking your students, okay, which one should we make next? What do we need to make that one next? Things like that. I absolutely, I love it. It's so functional. It's something that they're going to have to do for the rest of their lives, cook their own food. It's fun, like you said. It's motivating. It's fun to eat some of these things. Then you're not even realizing that you're working on your speech things at the same time. 

[0:17:03] MD: Exactly. I just tried it with the AAC group. Myself and another speech therapist went into her classroom and like the little boy, we were asking, ÒDo you want banana?Ó He would say, ÒNo.Ó With his device. Then we would say, ÒDo you want strawberry?Ó Then he verbalized, ÒstrawberryÓ. I'm like, oh, my God, Because that doesn't normally happen for him. It was so motivating to them and he kept on even as we were walking back like, after we cleaned up, he wanted more strawberries. I think it was his individual next or whatnot. I was like, ÒYeah, I'll wash you some more when we get back to the speech room.Ó 

Definitely, there are so many goals that can be addressed. Reading, comprehension. Even like just Ð I have kids take turns reading the steps. They even help me get ready like, why donÕt you help me make my own grocery list? What I need to get at the store this weekend. I got to get my act together, so I can be ready to do this activity you guys next week and everything. They help me too. 

[0:18:03] CL: Awesome. I love that. I absolutely love that. You gave us so many great things. Then KK also shared that they can see that it carries over to home. It's hopefully engaging with other family members. I can see that, they come home, ÒOh, man, it was so fun. We made polar bears today.Ó And then the parent, ÒYou made polar bear like, what's a polar bear?Ó Just like we did. They're able to hopefully tell them more about that. I love that idea too. You've given us the three things to know. What are two resources that you have for us either that we can use or that we can learn more? 

[0:18:40] MD: One of the resources is the Live Love Speech, her Instagram and if you follow her, she offers free recipes all the time like, when you follow her. She has these butterfly pretzels. I haven't done this one yet. Then there's also pretzel flowers and her ingredients are also very simple. Sometimes there's a little more to them like, I think one Ð oh, for the fruit pizza, it's called for cream cheese frosting and to make your own, I was like, ÒI donÕt have a mixer like that.Ó Yeah, so I just bought cream cheese frosting or another type of frosting and it worked out. I was like, ÒOkay, we're going to skip that step in there, just because I don't have a mixer at school or at home. But she has a lot of visual recipes, freebies. One of the first things I bought on TPT when I first learned about TPT was her visual recipes before they were in the actual thing. I think it was like one of the first things I bought from her. Like, I didn't even know what TPT was. 

[0:19:49] CL: For those that are listening, it's like cards that have visual recipes of the ingredients and like the steps of how to make it. 

[0:19:57] MD: Yes. These are them. These are our actual visual recipes, but they were first this big old book.

[0:20:04] CL: That you could get on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

[0:20:06] MD: That you can get on Teachers Pay Teachers, so never and did I think like, ÒOh, I'm going to become an ambassador.Ó If you picked for an ambassador for her or an affiliate or anything. That is just wow to me and everything. She's just another person I met on Instagram like you, I connected with. Super excited. The other free resource that I really like to is called Accessible Chef. They are, I think, accessiblechef.com and there's three easy recipes. There's pictures. There's like three parts. There's recipes like, over 200 or something recipes. There's resources about research. Then there is a creator one where if you wanted to make your own, let's say, s'mores one or something like, you could put it in your own pictures. That's a wonderful resource that is free online. 

[0:21:08] CL: Awesome, accessiblechef.com. That is fantastic. I'm really Ð I haven't heard of that one, so I'm really excited. 

[0:21:14] MD: I hadn't either, until this year. That is really a great resource for us. Of course, like if yeah, there's other recipes they already made for you, but if you wanted to create your own, there's that ability as well on there. 

[0:21:30] CL: Cool. I love that that there's both sides if you wanted it. Real quick, can you go over somebody's asking who is the creator for the visual recipes? 

[0:21:40] MD: Okay, so this is Kristine Deworocki. She is Live Love Speech. She's the one who does the visual recipes. Then these are her actual published ones that are very durable like the kids can hold them if something spills on them. It's not going to ruin them and everything. The free ones that she gives, we follow her on Instagram and everything. She'll share free recipes all the time. Those are the ones that I have downloaded. I have put in like a little sleeve or if I get time, I will put them through my laminator. 

[0:22:20] CL: Oh, beautiful. 

[0:22:21] MD: It just depends like how much time I have. Like sometimes if I'm just printing them, getting them ready before for the fruit pizza or something, I might not have time to do that before that session. I will just put them in a sleeve. I just put them in my binder or I file them. Oh, yeah, here's my first pizza one. This is the three pizza one that I used her. Kiwi, I couldn't do Kiwi, I was like, no one even wants a blueberry. You can just substitute things, so I brought banana and the kids did like the banana and strawberries and some kids blueberries. 

[0:22:57] CL: I just looked her website is www.livelovespeech.com. Then her Instagram handle is just @livelovespeech. 

[0:23:07] MD: Yes, and he also just picked me for an affiliate. If you buy any of her visual recipes, you can use my code Monica10 to get 10% off. I'm super excited about that. 

[0:23:19] CL: Awesome. Yeah, definitely we'll do that. 

[MESSAGE]

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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:23:43] CL: That's fantastic. What great resources, because I know when I'm thinking about like where to even get started. It's like, okay, I know I want to do something fun for the end of the school year or I know I want to do something fun during parent-teacher conference time or, just like you said, summer school. I am going to be working summer school this summer. It's like, okay, I want to do something fun, but sometimes at that point in the year or like right before Christmas break, like, I have no brain power. It's really great that there's Live Love Speech or Accessible Chef to look and see, okay, what's here that's easy to do? It's already organized for me, and I don't have to think through all the steps myself. 

[0:24:34] MD: I agree. I agree, because at the end of the school year, maybe you just want to do like a little bait or like trail mix or whatnot. It just depends on whatever you can do, your kids are going to love like it doesn't have to be fancy. It could be Chex Mix and some M&M and like sometimes I have marshmallows, so my kids know I have marshmallows and we'll add marshmallows in or mini chocolate chips. It just depends. 

We know that our kids or our students are going to be happy Ð that we took the time to do something different and fun with them like out of even the box of or what we Ð I didn't go to school. I didn't get any guidance or like, oh, bring cooking into your therapy room. Like, I never got that. I think it's fun. I think our students really, really enjoy it. One of my students said, ÒYou're like a mom, because you do fun things with us.Ó I'm like Ð 

[0:25:42] CL: That's awesome. How great that he thinks of his own mom as doing fun things too. I love that. I love that they Ð that gives them just, or it gives us another way to build that rapport and to make our rooms or our offices just another safe, fun space. 

[0:26:03] MD: Yes. They canÕt sometimes, don't eat or maybe they miss breakfast. I'm not saying I know that happens though that, oh, I'm hungry, because I didnÕt get finish Ð one of my students said, ÒI get to finish my,Ó I don't know what it was, his yogurt or something. I'm like, ÒOkay, honey. Well, we're going to make something today, so you'll have a snack right now, don't worry.Ó It just like, you just saw a space like, because at first, he was ready to cry when I picked him up to go to speech, because he was still upset that he didn't get to finish whatever it was for breakfast. I'm like, ÒOkay.Ó It just changed his whole mood around. I know we can't always do that, but I mean, it just so happened. It worked out that day. 

[0:26:48] CL: That's awesome. I love that. All right. What is your one actionable strategy for us? 

[0:26:55] MD: You need to go through your own kitchen. You need what you have extra. When I first started, I was like, oh, I have extra measuring cups. I have extra spoons or I got extra spoons, because I had something catered for my son's first communion. Like there are things in your kitchen that you have way too much of. I'm going to tell you that right now, I don't even need to go in there. You know that if you go through your kitchen, let's say you're going to do some spring cleaning or some cleaning this summer of your kitchen. Let's say you have extra teaspoons, measuring cups, mixing spoons, whatever it is. Aprons, potholders, like, a lot of my kids don't even know the word ÔpotholderÕ and everything. 

These are words, ÔapronÕ, things that we can help our students in that functional communication. Maybe you have some extra forks like, maybe you had a party and you have extra forks and spoons and stuff. Just throw them in a box. This is my cooking box that usually is at school. It's just a Sterlite box, and I throw utensils in there. I have the aprons. I have frosting. Here's that cream cheese frosting. I have other aprons. 

Now, some of these aprons, I did inherit from one of my teacher friends, Mrs. Clark, who did retire, and they weren't using them anymore. She would bring them out when I come in and do a cooking activity in her class. She was just always supportive. I think that helps too. If you're going to get started like, if you have a teacher or somebody who's going to help you, either bring the ingredients or share, because it's part of what they do too in the classroom study and an SDC setting and everything. 

I felt like that helped me to having a partner, a teacher who was going to help me as well. I wasn't just me trying to do all this and everything. Now it is just me, because she's retired, but I did take like nobody was using them. No. The cooking she was doing her own stuff too. I do go in there sometimes and still borrow something if I need to, but the aprons and everything like, it's just her little legacy too, as I've taken over and everything. 

I think you'll have stuff in your kitchen. Don't go buy anything. No. Don't do that, until you know what you have, because it you might have extra something or maybe your mom is downsizing some things. My mom always gives me stuff too that they don't need anymore. Definitely, do that before you buy. Before you go to Dollar Tree, before you go to 99 Cent Store, or you go to the store, do not buy anything until you look in your own kitchen. 

[0:30:19] CL: Awesome. Thank you for that. I would have never thought to do that, but it's so true. I know that we have extra measuring cups right now. They're my daughters, but pretty soon they're not going to be. I have a toddler at home and that's what she plays with while I'm cooking dinner, but I love that idea of going through. I also love that you brought up that point of having a supportive person at work that helps you out. I've done cooking one time in my 11 years working in Ð as working in the schools as a speech therapist. I was working in a emotionally disturbed classroom and the boys were just making so much great progress. 

I somehow, I don't know, I think they came up with the idea of, ÒOh, we want to throw a party.Ó I said, ÒOkay. Like let's start planning it out. Okay, what do we need to throw a party?Ó I had them come up with what it was. I only had like four students in that class that I was working with. I mean, some pragmatics things and some speech articulation things. They had to come up with, ÒOh, we need decorations, we need food, we need invitations, we needÉÓ I mean, it was a really long process. We worked through all of it. It wasn't just a one-time thing. 

I brought in the food, the teacher and I brought in the food and we made tacos, because we had just done Dragons Love Tacos. We had made Ð we had made tacos for the whole group, but like, that was a big undertaking because we did cook for the whole class. We did bring in the food for the whole class, but it was really fun. Then I never did it again. I love this idea of starting small and then also looking in the kitchen. As you were talking about that, I thought, I mean, I have a pretty active like buying a theme Facebook group where I'm at like posting up, ÒHey, I'm wanting to do some things with my students. Does anybody have any extra measuring cups or mixing bowls or whatever?Ó I love that that idea of going for what's free first. I just love that.

We have a couple questions from people that are listening. I have my own question first, because this is something else that I think about that's like a barrier for me is it can get expensive. What tips do you have for us to keep those costs down? I love your first tip of raid your own kitchen first. Then what do you do when it comes to like those ingredients? 

[0:33:14] MD: Yeah. I love pancake mix from Costco. Not only for my own family, but because like, you get the big, I don't have it in my kitchen, but you get that big one. Then the [Inaudible 0:33:25] I don't know what it is. But I do that. I am a bargain shopper. Okay? I went to the grocery store every Saturday with my dad, and we would cut coupons like I am that person in my family. When I'm cooking, I am going to look at how much do those Oreos cost at Costco versus the Stater Brothers or the local Target or whatnot. 

I think the Oreo thing I got last time was on sale like it was a huge one. It's normally $13 and it was like under 10. Then I saw Oreos the other day for like seven bucks at Costco. You know that I'm going to go buy those on sale, and I'm going to be able to use them for dirt cups and be able to use them for penguins. I'm going to be able to use them for so many different things that because it's so versatile and everything, you can dip them in things. I haven't done that yet, but I have seen it. 

I'm going to be looking for sales. After Easter there were a bunch of frostings that were on sale. This cream cheese one was on sale for I don't know, if was a $1.70 something. I don't even think I knew it was cream cheese. I just thought it was vanilla and I grabbed it, because it was on sale. There's always that sale section. You check the date if there's nothing wrong with it and everything. Then there was like a fruity pebbles frosting on sale at Target. I grabbed it. I was like; this is $1.50. I'm going to go buy that versus spending over $2 or something on frosting. 

You can make your own too. She gave me the recipe to make it with cream cheese and powdered sugar, but in the speech room, I don't have time, that much time to make it unless I was going to go into a classroom and spend that extra. I was going to do maybe 45 minutes to an hour session. Definitely, I think there are ways to look at things that are going on sale, especially after Christmas, like, there's all those frostings. I have a different green and red. You don't have to use the green and red, the little sprinkles on top. You just need the frosting. 

Our students, they don't really mind if the frosting tastes like fruity pebbles, but it actually went really well with the fruit pizzas. They noticed that it tastes different. I'm like, ÒOh, well, how does it taste different than regular?Ó Like it just opens up these other communicative opportunities like, Mrs. Donoso, one of my students said, ÒI can't have that frosting, because it has red dye something, but it does, vanilla frosting.Ó I was shocked about some things I didn't know about frosting. 

Definitely look at the sales. Look at that after Easter, Christmas sales price check between the grocery store. If you can get those Oreos cheaper, the big pack at Costco versus the store, you should grab them, or if you see them on the sale rack, grab them, because Ð graham crackers even. Like, okay, I'm going to buy the big graham cracker thing at Costco versus buying each little box for $1.99 at Target because it's more cost-effective and everything, because that money does come out of my check. 

Now, if I would have thought about it more, I would have tried to write a grant for it. In the fall, I didn't have everything together. I hadn't really done it as consistently like I did this one once, twice a month. I didn't know how much it was going to cost me, but I did decide like, okay, well, if I'm going to do this, then no buying games, no buying extra things from my classroom IÕm going to be really good. I was really good from January through now, because I knew I was going to spend the extra cost on my students or my students to help their speech and language skills. 

Now, you can still write it off your taxes. You can keep all that and write it off your taxes as a school donation. Sometimes our PTA will ask us for a receipt. They'll say, ÒOh, if you spend a hundred dollars on your classroom. I know you spend a hundred dollars on your classroom.Ó I know, I did. Sometimes your PTA will be a good reimbursement as well and everything. I haven't tried that though. I just know that it is an option as well. 

[0:37:40] CL: Awesome. Thank you for that. That's such a great idea to like write a grant or reach out to special ed to see if there's any extra plans or anything like that. I think that's great. I know our district is a little bit limited in terms of like who our vendors are that we can request from, but I mean, we just got Amazon as a vendor. There's tons of food that are on Amazon now. That would be helpful for me like, moving in the future. 

There is a question, because you mentioned that just a little bit before about the student who talked about the red dye. There's a great question from Angela, who said, ÒDo you have parents sign permission to utilize cooking in therapy?Ó Then, ÒDo you also use parents to gather their allergen information?Ó 

[0:38:27] MD: I use Aeries or my IEP to look at allergies. I have an allergy list. Everybody who's flagged is on there. I definitely, I make sure if any of my students are on there, I know. One kid I didn't know was gluten-free. That's where we got the rice cake instead of the graham cracker. The red dye thing I did not know, but that student is highly verbal, highly intelligent. He knows everything about every fact. He was going to also ask me about, ÒIs my fruit organic?Ó That one I also was not prepared for. I'm like, ÒWell, I got it at Costco. I got the blueberries in Stater Brothers. The bananas are organic, but yeah, sometimes I can't control red dye unless I'm going to make the frosting myself and I have that mixer. 

I mean, if I wanted to, I could bring in my hand mixer and do that. Now, that's more I feel more money to buy cream cheese and do all that stuff. Cream cheese, I have to worry about milk and different things. I definitely look at the allergy list. I look at the IEP. I do speak to parents, some parents I have text message, or I will call them ahead of time. Especially, if it's an end pf year thing and I want them to feel included and be a part of it, I will call the parent ask them, ÒIs it okay?Ó Because sometimes parents have their child on a gluten-free or whatnot. Not because of allergies, but because of behavior or different things that they're trying to cut out sugar, but they'll sometimes say it's okay. My other student, the mom said it was okay, but he still didn't want it, which was funny. I tried.

[0:40:20] CL: That reminds me of the student that I did the tacos with. He said, ÒI'm not allowed to eat red dye.Ó I was like, ÒI don't think there's any red dye. We have ground beef. We have tortillas.Ó I let him read the ingredient list for the corn tortillas. He wasn't allowed to have gluten, either. It was really; he would like really pronounced gluten. I was like, ÒIt's corn tortillas, and then there's lettuce and tomatoes. That's it.Ó I said, ÒWe have cheese, but you're not going to eat the cheese.Ó ÒNo, I'm not going to eat the cheese.Ó That was all that we had done, but he reminded me of your student who was like double-checking, which is good. 

[0:41:01] MD: Triple checking. 

[0:41:03] CL: Yeah. It's good, though. It's really good that they know what they can and can't do and that they're advocating for themselves, too. 

[0:41:10] MD: Yeah. That's important, especially if it is like a allergy that can really harm them. I did not have any of my parents sign. I let my students know, but I didn't have any of my parents sign anything about it, because I really didn't know how many I was going to do. I would say, ÒOh, I'm going to do this.Ó Like, I think I tried the melting snowman. I'm like, ÒOh, no. I don't like it as much.Ó I would do like a trial run, which I do with a lot of my therapies. Sometimes there's a trial run and then it gets better as the week continues, right? You do things and I didn't like that one. Then I changed it and everything. 

I definitely didn't do that, but I think if you wanted to or you know have students that the parents might get worried about sugar or something then or you could just let them know like, sometimes with your introduction to be in a school year like, ÒI plan to do some cooking activities with your students. I hope that's okay. If you have any questions, email me.Ó Like, you always just send like something. Maybe I'll do that next year. I think that's a great idea, too, that in order to let your families know, but I did not. I'm sorry. 

[0:42:21] CL: No, but I think that really is a good idea of including it. If you're planning on doing it next year in your welcome letter or yeah, and who knows, you might get donations of graham crackers. 

[0:42:31] MD: Yeah. That's another thing. If you do, do that, and you know what you're going to do, then definitely I would think ask for donations, right? They always give Kleenex and different thing to other classrooms. I don't get Kleenex, but TK teacher shares with me, but people would be happy to give you donations, I think. I like your free Facebook idea too or extra measuring cups, because there are people that are moving or getting rid of things that definitely you can adopt into your speech room. 

[0:43:06] CL: Do you have any tips for managing your cooking activities in back-to-back sessions?

[0:43:12] MD: Managing, like cleaning up? 

[0:43:15] CL: Yeah. I think so. I think talking about like cleaning up, setting it back up for the next group like, how do you do it? 

[0:43:21] MD: It takes work. I do like to wear my apron, because it is messy. I am very fortunate in my speech room that I do have a sink. As soon as I tell my students we're doing a cooking activity, we have to wash our hands. I have bowls. If we are doing the pancakes for measuring, the powder is not going to really leave a lot of residue, so I use it again to measure with water or whatnot. Between sessions I will either rinse it out, clean it or if there was like extra mix like, we might just add more so everybody can still be in the process or be active participant in the process and you could be an active participant in the process, but maybe you don't pancakes, you don't want to eat it. I have someone like that too, but they will participate in everything, but they won't eat. 

Definitely, everybody washes their hands, cleaning the table. When we do any cooking activity, we'll have cleaning all the time. What am I talking about? Many kids are sick right now, but we are definitely, I am fortunate that I have a sink so I can clean between. I have my wipes that we wipe things down and you sometimes are sweating between the sessions back-to-back, but I do when I'm going to do cooking, I'm doing it with everybody. 

There might be one group, maybe two, that I am not for whatever reason, they don't want to do it or itÕs just not going to work out. That will be my plan to do it with everybody. This day, this day and if we have an extension activity, then we do it again too, or we add a different element to it. Definitely, I'm not switching from cooking to just like a bingo. It's like we're going to all be cooking. That's the way we're going to elicit and get address all of our goals. 

[0:45:16] CL: I'm also Ð well, I've only done it once, but I made the boys help me clean up after, because that's what you do at a party. After you have your party, you have to clean everything up, if you're the host. I'm also thinking like, okay, like every kid has a role in the cleaning up process and just building that into the session time too. 

[0:45:37] MD: Yeah. Building it in and that's your plate you use, you need to take it to trash. I'm not cleaning that for you. Like, I'm very honest with my students like, ÒOh, no. You're able to do that. You're able to Ð don't you have any.Ó Someone said, no.

[0:45:55] CL: No choice at home. 

[0:45:56] MD: No choice at home. Well, in the speech room we get to do these fun activities, but it also is a responsibility that we all help clean up. We've all participated in this activity, so we need somebody wanted to throw Ð see the one student that I only did it with him a couple of times are not as much as my other, he wanted to throw frosting and I'm like, ÒWell, no, because if it hits the wall, I'm going to get ants, like, do you want ants in our speech room and we have to think about things like that? We're not throwing frosting in my room.Ó 

[0:46:32] CL: I love that, because it gives you like a whole another teaching opportunity and you're teaching them the reason instead of just like, no. No, we're not doing that, because I think so often kids hear the word no, but then there's no actual like, well, the reason why we're not doing that is because of X, Y, or Z. I think that that is really helpful for you to work through that with kids instead of just like, no, stop doing that. No, we're not going to throw frosting. We have to clean up. We don't want ants. We want this to be a clean space. I love that. 

[0:47:10] MD: Even just like holding a bowl like, if someone is mixing sometimes kids don't hold the bowl like with the other hand. What you have to hold the bowl so it doesn't fall in your lap or fall this way and spill all over. If someone else wants a turn, we're not just going and grabbing it. You need to ask. Can I have a turn now to mix? Is it my turn to mix? Like there are just pragmatic opportunities, naturalistic opportunities that are embedded in it like that. I can't even plan for like they just naturally happen. Well, you need to ask him. It's my turn. Can I have a turn, because that's how we communicate functionally in the world. 

I think there's just so many turn taking opportunities and opportunities to formulate questions that even in a simple activity, such as making pancakes. Oh, no, I don't want bananas. Oh, yes, I just want a plain pancake. Well, you need to verbalize that to me, because you need to talk and you need to use your words or I'm going to put bananas in it and you're not going to like it. You need to tell me. I want a plain pancake. More chocolate chips. Most of them want chocolate chips. 

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[0:48:40] CL: I love it. It's reminding me of Ð I had a guest on the podcast last year. Oh, my goodness, Declarative Language, Linda Murphy. That was her name blanked on me for just a second. She talks about giving our students purpose and meaningful roles in our speech sessions. At first, I was like, what does that mean? Then cooking does that, because you can have one student who is mixing and then another student who's going to be the pourer and another student who's going to read off the ingredient list or whatever is. Everybody has their role and they're all working together for the common like purpose. I just Ð I'm so excited to try cooking. I may not try it before the end of the school year, but I will definitely do it for summer school this year. 

[0:49:30] MD: Yeah. It's fun. I think just something simple. Pancakes would be simple or your students. I just think that there's so many communicative opportunities that I had to really think about like, because I think about them when we're doing them, and then something else comes up, but definitely, I feel like, I try to give everybody a chance to pour whether it's part of the water, the whole water, the pancake mix, everybody's going to get a turn to mix. Like you get some kids who need to learn about cooperation as well in this simple pancake activity. 

Well, I wanted to go first. It doesn't matter if you go first or second. You're still going to have a turn to mix the ingredients or pour the ingredients in, just a word like ÔpourÕ to is a great verb for our students, because they sometimes just say put Ð you're actually pouring water and you're actually measuring it with the measuring cup and everything. There's just so many opportunities that I am always just, oh, my gosh, and you know we're going to talk about that, things just happen. 

[0:50:41] CL: I love that. I love that. Then there's so many extension activities that you can do for like, okay what new vocabulary words did you guys learn? Okay, because I used to do this and it's been a while. Now I'm thinking. Oh, I need to bring this back. Just when you were talking about that, I used to for the students that wanted, I never made it a thing, but if we learned a new vocabulary word, they could write it in their group's book. 

Then if they had the whole week to think of like different places that they saw it. I would let them like take a note card, a three-by-five card with them if they wanted to participate and they could write where they saw it or where they heard it or a time that they used it. Then they bring it back and then we share it all together as a group. Then I usually would like give them some prize or whatever. 

I'm thinking how much fun would that be for them to like use cooking, using some of these tiered to cooking vocabulary, because they're going to be at home with their grown up at home that's cooking with them. That just helps reinforce those tiered to vocabulary words or the articulation of that happens within those tiered to vocabulary words. I just love it. I think it's going to be really fun to start utilizing this. What changes have you seen in your students since you've really started to utilize more cooking? 

[0:52:09] MD: I see them more motivated, definitely because we're trying to use a naturalistic way. It's so hard sometimes for us to generalize their sounds that they practice with me. I see them more motivated to use their sounds and I'll turn on it. Listen to yourself. Listen, what we're saying in recipe. Are you using your essay, putting your tongue in the right position? I see them being more motivated, more better attention. I see them want to cook themselves. Like some of the kids ask me, ÒOh, can I have a copy of the recipe?Ó I'm like, ÒYeah.Ó Like I give them the recipe. 

I know like they went home and talked to their mom about it. You're getting extra communication to or language at home generalizing from the speech room. I don't know if they're talking about it otherwise. Maybe they are. I don't know. Definitely the cooking, because it is something that's out of the box. It's not something we're doing every week. They are talking about it. We're making it definitely I feel like I always create a safe place for my students, but definitely a very welcoming environment that I want them to feel like they can be themselves there or just we're going to do like you would at home a cooking activity. 

I see a lot of kids though sometimes, maybe they're not in the kitchen and that's okay, so I'm giving them some background knowledge. Things that I would expect. I don't know. I was always in the kitchen with my mom and maybe that's because I'm a girl. I don't Ð rules are different. Our kids are playing. They're busy with their activities they do, so they're not in the kitchen, maybe as much. They don't always have that background knowledge. I'm also giving them a background knowledge to think back to like, ÒOh, yeah. I remember when Mrs. Donoso wore that apron.Ó Hopefully they're going to take that vocabulary with them, because now they have the background knowledge. 

I hope the language that we're learning and a recipe like, that's a hard. I don't know. People don't use recipes that much anyway. I don't know. I like the visual recipes too that you see on Instagram or different places, but like I'm not sure that's a word. I don't hear kids use that word. It takes a while. We have to keep repeating it. We have to keep using that word. Will you use it? Like, what recipe do we do today? What were the ingredients? My kids like to say, stuff. 

[0:54:40] CL: Yeah. I used to write sequencing goals to target those tier two vocabulary, because I would get, ÒOh, you put it on the thing.Ó ÒThat's for brushing your teeth. What are the steps for brushing your teeth?Ó ÒOh, well, you put it on the thing and then you do it.Ó I'm just thinking, ÒOh, yeah.Ó Like I remember working on like sequencing goals to try and get those more specific vocabulary. Now I'm like, ÒOh, why didn't I use cooking?Ó I mean, you have all of the visual cues right there. It's like you said, naturalistic and I just love that idea of how much doing something out of the blue like you said. That's why kids go on field trips. That's why they do different things in their classroom to help build some of that and to give them something to talk about that's a little bit different. 

If we are talking about cooking, then they're going home and talking about speech. I don't know how many students I've had in the past 11 years that the parents come to the IEP and they're like, ÒOh, I thought it was a parent-teacher conference.Ó ÒOh, my kid gets speech.Ó I'm like, ÒYeah, remember last year we hadÉÓ Like I always take it up on myself of like, ÒOkay, I got to build better rapport with my parents, or I've got to do something better.Ó But this way like, they're going home, and they're talking about it. I love that. 

[0:56:05] MD: Yeah. ItÕs something meaningful. It's very meaningful to them, because it's not just a drill and kill, which we do drill and kill too, don't get me wrong. It's not just a game. It's definitely something that they're going to remember. That they're going to go home and talk about hopefully that they take with them, and they're learning the vocabulary and everything that we are trying to teach them in a meaningful way. That's what I want all of us to do, right? We all want them to take away from speech and take the vocabulary we're teaching them and use it in a functional way. 

We want it to generalize. We want all of that and everything. I'm hoping that's what happens and everything. I didn't do any before and after testing, so I think that would have been good, too, maybe to do some before and after testing. I feel like my kids understood ingredients. They feel like they really understood that vocabulary word and recipe, because those were every time, I think you can have ingredients, theyÕre going to have a recipe like, let's definitely get that word down. Then the other thing I didn't mention or I forgot to mention was, oh, check your teachersÕ lounge. 

[0:57:17] CL: Oh, awesome. 

[0:57:19] MD: Check your teachersÕ lounge, as well. Sometimes they have too much stuff going on in there, too. Definitely, I mean, maybe thereÕs some plates or something there's Ð they just have like teacher appreciation and maybe there's extra plates or forks like sometimes I do go in there and grab some stuff if I forgot like some spoons. 

[0:57:38] CL: I think that's such a good idea. I know, I'm always going in there just stealing the extra spoons for myself and my lunch or breakfast or whatever. That's such a good idea to go in there and just see if there's anything extra milling around. 

[0:57:51] MD: Yeah, because sometimes they have lots of, because when they order of food, there's extra spoons or different things that you can use for mixing and spreading or sometimes they just give Ð maybe there's not enough knives, plastic knives, so we're using a spoon to spread as well. I see, even those ÔutensilsÕ. Those aren't always vocabulary words that my students know. It's such a functional word. Well, what is a utensil? Those are spoons, forks, bigger spoon. These are all utensils or ÔwhiskÕ. There's just different things that I feel our students can definitely learn from. There's also a cooking highlight. If anybody wants to go on to my Instagram, I have a cooking highlight too on there that I put some of my cooking stuff in. If you have any questions, you can always message me on there. That's where I'm on the most. 

[0:58:45] CL: What is your handle, Monica? 

[0:58:46] MD: It's @monicadslp. I also have therapy ideas in there that aren't cooking, because yeah, we can't all cook. I know some people, there are some strict guidelines at their schools and maybe they can't do cooking. There's other therapy ideas you can use as well on my handle that I always want to make sure that it's easy, functional, fun, that I don't want you to have to go buy a brand new toy or brand new thing. I always want to go buy it too, though, when I see it on Instagram, IÕll be honest with you. I understand that we can't spend lots and lots of money on our classroom. We want to, but we also have our own families and our own lives and everything that it's important to have therapy ideas that are going to break the bank, as well. 

[0:59:35] CL: Thank you so much. Thank you for just bringing all of those different ideas to your Instagram and being a place of inspiration, but also authenticity and realness for those of us who need it. I really appreciate that. Can you, as we're wrapping up, can you give us your three things we need to know, your two resources and your one actionable strategy one more time? 

[0:59:59] MD: Yeah. The first thing is start easy, start with pancake. Something just like two ingredients. Tacos, that's a hard one that you took on. Definitely. It's fun to cook with your students. ItÕs very rewarding. You're going to see a side of your students that you maybe haven't seen before or some actual maybe holes, too, that maybe they don't have. You think they do, but they don't always have it, language and you can cook with any age, you can address any goals within a cooking activity. You are going to hit those goals. You're going to address their speech and language need and everything. It's going to be fun. We're going to throw some of their goals in there as well. 

The two resources are Live Love Speech @livelovespeech. She has her visual recipe and then she has free downloads, different things that she's making sure we've had seasonal things and then these are her visual recipes that are awesome and durable. Then that other resource Accessible Chef is so cool as well. That is free. I mean, we need free resources available for us. I'm just so excited, even like some of the things that I've gotten on Instagram, from other people or TPT that are free and we need those. You might have to do a little looking, but they are there for you to take advantage of and use in your speech room. 

[1:01:32] CL: Awesome. Then the one actionable strategy for tomorrow. 

[1:01:36] MD: Go through your kitchen. Don't buy anything yet. Get old aprons. Maybe there's an apron that you don't want to wear anymore. I don't know. In your house or something, maybe. I don't know. Take it to school, so you have it at school so you can wear it and like, just wear it one day and see what your kids say. I am curious like do they know what that is called an apron? It is not called a thingy. Why are you wearing that, Mrs. Donoso or Mrs. Lopez? Oh, well, do you know why you wear apron? Do you ever Ð it's just an opportunity, a natural language opportunity.

 I'm all about that, because sometimes we do bring out our project or something and we want our clothes to stay nice and clean. Some of the kids do want to apron on some don't. Some kids will tell you, ÒNo, Mrs. Donoso.Ó They don't want extra things on them. I try to have at least four or five aprons out in case my kids do want to wear them to keep their clothes clean and everything. I think that's the strategy is look what you have first at home. Don't feel like you have to go buy a whole, new cups or something. Check the teacherÕs lounge. See if anyone is getting rid of or downsides in a movie, getting rid of things. Maybe there's some extra measuring spoons, teaspoons and stuff, because all of that does cost money and we want to make sure that not only are you buying ingredients you want to put your costs lower. 

[1:03:10] CL: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Monica. Thank you for like I said, just being a bright light out there and keeping it real on Instagram. Also, just by keeping it real with fun, functional things, but then keeping our costs down. I know I've followed you for quite a while now and just the resources that you post and the inspiration that you post, I'm really grateful for. I hope that our listeners really connect with you as well. 

[1:03:39] MD: Yeah. Connect with me. Like I said, send me a message. If you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer them. I just want you to go out there, have fun with your kids, go out of the box a little bit. You can. It's the most rewarding thing like seeing our kids do something different and they enjoy it too. 

[1:04:01] CL: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Just a reminder, at the conclusion of today's course, please log into your course portal and complete all modules, especially the one entitled Quiz by end of day today to get your live credit. Thank you, everyone. We hope to see you back here again soon and many, many thanks to Monica. 

[1:04:22] MD: Yeah. 

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SpeechLife 35		Transcript

	©Ê2023 This Speech Life	1

SpeechLife 35		Transcript

	©Ê2023 This Speech Life	1