Children with hearing loss need "one hour of auditory instruction in a quiet environment". Creating a quiet environment in my home is nearly impossible with a six year old and two 4 year olds...quiet is something rare except for the brief moments Brooke and I find ourselves in the kitchen. So, I take advantage of these opportunities by turning a house-hold chore into a listening activity.
1. Vocabulary: When parents cook with a child, kids are exposed to an entirely new set of vocabulary words. Using words like bowl, preheat, teaspoon, mixer, stir, measure, and grate expand a child's mind. Parents should use the correct words for kitchen utensils and cooking terms whenever possible – it will surprise them how fast children pick up these unfamiliar terms.
2. Critical Elements: All children have difficulty remembering lists, but children with hearing loss have to learn to remember lists that are given verbally. Parents can say, "We need to use 2 eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. (pause) What do we need?" The child will then repeat back the list or pick up the items from the counter. They learn to listen to verbal directions, remember them, and carry them out; this skill is difficult but practicing in the kitchen is a practical way to work on it.
3. Lessons on Sequencing: By preparing meals with a parent, preschoolers begin to see that the order in which steps are taken is important. This allows a parent to teach sequencing vocabulary such as first, second, next, and last which are often difficult for a hearing impaired child to understand.
4. Song: Songs are difficult for Brooke to learn since the words often flow together and there is little separation in the words. She can pick up the tune (despite my poor musical ability) but learning the words take a lot of practice. In the kitchen, we often make up songs about what we are doing so she can get some more practice with this skill. We will sing, "This is the way we stir the batter, stir the batter, stir the batter. This is the way we stir the batter when we make cupcakes."
Below are some of our wonderful and not-so-wonderful creations this summer. We often didn't take pictures because of sticky hands, but we have a few to share!
Pretzels: These were disgusting and not a single person ate them, but it was a good learing process since we made some letters, numbers and shapes out of the pretzels.
Homemade fruit roll-ups
Here is Kate with some cupcake cookies we made.
I don't even remember what these pictures were but probably some cookies, banana bread, cupcakes or some other yummy treat.
Granola - also a"flop" since I burned it. But we used it to feed fish, squirrels and birds and they liked it!
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