Cascadia Elementary students were amped to make trail mix during one of their regular Cooking Club sessions. But this wasn’t just a fun snack time activity – Cascadia staff were dispensing knowledge tidbits left and right throughout.

For example, while passing out raisins for the students to add to their mixes, Speech and Language Pathologist Hillary Windrem took the opportunity to ask the kids what raisins were made from. After a couple of guesses – “Seeds!” “Grass!” – she offered a clue.

“I’ll give you a hint: it’s a fruit, they’re green or purple, and they come in a bunch,” Windrem said.

“Grapes!” one student proclaimed.

“Yes! Raisins are dried grapes,” Windrem responded with a smile.

Later that same afternoon, as a different student was stirring his trail mix, Windrem snuck in a language arts lesson.

“I wonder – are stirring and mixing the same thing?” Windrem asked the student. “Yes! They’re called synonyms.”

Together with fellow Speech and Language Pathologist Debbie Wilcox and district occupational therapists, Windrem launched the Cooking Club at Cascadia last year after she ran a similar program for nearly a decade in Austin, Texas. This school year, the program has expanded to Eagleridge and Central elementary schools. Students have created a wide variety of simple snacks and meals: mac and cheese, English-muffin pizza, smores, milkshakes, PB&J sandwiches, and so much more.

These lessons don’t only teach kids how to make some of their favorite dishes -- they also boost students’ skills in a variety of fields. Students learn valuable lessons in social communication, following a set list of directions, vocabulary, sequencing, recalling details, and even waiting their turn. And best of all – the kids love it, even if they don’t typically enjoy class.

“Some students who have a difficult time sitting and doing traditional instruction, they’re their most successful in Cooking Club,” Windrem said. “They ask all the time, ‘Are we cooking this week?’”

Many students in Special Education programs are learning to use assistive technology and augmentative/alternative communication tools. For example, some students with limited motor functions press a button to control a lever which pours ingredients into the mix. Cooking Club gives these students opportunities to practice this technology to complete real-world, functional tasks that are highly rewarding. Windrem and Wilcox said that some students had their first major breakthroughs with assistive technology in Cooking Club.

As any chef will tell you, exact measurements are very important in cooking. So, it would make sense that students in Cooking Club are also reinforcing their math skills every time they use an ingredient.

“For example, a fifth-grade class is learning about volume, so when those students came to Cooking Club, we got out the measuring cups and spoons,” Windrem said. They could see, feel, and weigh the volume of something.”

Debbie Wilcox, who co-facilitates the Cooking Club at Cascadia, said the sessions help students learn essential food preparation skills, along with communication.

“You get to talk about things you like or don’t like,” Wilcox said. “Also, they get to learn how to make predictions – if you put something solid in the microwave, is it going to change?”

Recently, students outside of the Life Skills program have joined Cooking Class, including students served by a variety of Special Education programs. Windrem said this gives students, who have a wide range of needs, an opportunity to be a role model to their peers.

“They get to show students with more complex communication needs how they’d raise their hands and ask for something, for instance,” she said. “Maybe in their classrooms, they don’t get to have that experience.”

And of course – at the end of the session, kids are rewarded for their hard work with a delicious snack that they made themselves. That’s a major motivation!

“The whole time, they’re thinking, ‘I really want to push through this challenge, because I know at the end there’s going to be a treat,’” Windrem said.