Ever thought about making homemade conversation hearts?
The recipe can be found at
Make Monthly and a great photo version of the recipe is at
About.com. On day one prepare the dough using your switches with the mixer and our cooking communication pages. This is a fun activity that reinforced requesting a turn, fine motor skills, following directions and switch use. Then let every student have a ball of dough on some parchment paper to knead. Once the dough is formed each student smells the bottles of extract (try lemon, orange, root beer, strawberry and mint) and chooses one to use. Each student is responsible for making one flavor of dough, coloring it with food dye, rolling it out and cutting out the hearts with a cookie cutter. What a wonderful multi-sensory experience with feeling the sugar and dough, see the colors, hearing the mixer and smelling the extracts!
Once the hearts are done set them out to dry. The next morning give students were given a selection of 12 picture symbols showing messages that could be written by their adult partner on the candies (love, friends, sweetheart, you're icky, text me...). Students also have a choice of five colored food dye markers to write their messages. This portion of making conversation hearts is all about choice making!
Have fun!
A lot of special needs bloggers have shared this resource and I want to pass it along as well.
