“Peggy’s Pantry”

By Betsy Clark

My sensory needy child has an intense need to cook. I have found this to be quite an issue in the kitchen as her five-year-old culinary skills are lacking. In order to keep some sanity for myself, but not gate her out completely, I’ve begun working on a kitchen-ready sensory plan.

These are some of the ideas I have developed and seem to be successful:

• Identify a single place in the kitchen for your child to work on their projects and furnish it with their own utensils. I.e. bowls, spoons, measuring devices etc.
• Designate the place where his/her ingredients will be stored. (We call it “Peggy’s Pantry”) and keep easily opened containers there.
• Stock the pantry with very small quantities of items such as marshmallows, raisins, peanut butter, oatmeal, nuts, dry cereal, pretzels, etc.
• On occasion, add a mix to the pantry. This might be a ready-made mix such as pudding or pizza crust. You might prepare ahead your own mixes by dividing full size items into baggies. This is a mix I have used repeatedly:
• Divide into 4 plastic snack bags: 1 cake mix + 1 pudding mix
• The recipe: 1 “bag” of mix, 3 tablespoons water, 3 tablespoons oil, 1 egg. Stir until smooth. Grease pan 6 cupcake tins, or 12 mini cupcake tins, or 1 bread pan, or 1 small cake round tin. Spoon batter into pan and bake at 350 degrees for 12-20 minutes.
• You might allow your child to use a few specified items from the refrigerator, ie.. whipped cream in a spray can, chocolate syrup, goober jelly, small carton of milk. The big idea is to give your child some sense of independence so they stay away from your things and to make it easy to help him/her be creative and successful.

Good Luck!