Not for the weak of Heart: Bologna Valentines

People generally have strong feelings about bologna.  I remember my first bologna sandwich.  I'm pretty sure it was on the now defunct "Wonder bread" with one slice of bolonga and my name written in mustard on it.  The best part of these sandwiches was that when you placed your finger down it would leave little finger imprints on the sandwich.

I haven't eaten bologna in years due to the questionable health benefits.  But I'm not disgusted by it.  The smell reminds me of my childhood.  (I'm pretty sure I used to lick bologna before I would put it on my sandwich...I was kind of an odd kid growing up.)  I will pull it out in therapy because it's an easy food to cut into shapes.  For feeding clients it's an easy food to manage because it requires minimal chewing and forms into a bolus quite easily.

I found this recipe for a Bologna Valentine on the website: Makelearningfun.com.

Make Learning Fun is one of my GO-TO websites for quick and motivating activities to work on sequencing and a variety of other goals.   My favorite section is the visual recipes.

Here's how we used it in Speech Therapy this week:

First we started by reviewing the recipe and deciding what materials we needed.

We worked on attributes + nouns:

• wet bologna, dry pretzels
• sticky cheese
• tiny pieces
• Salty pretzel 
• Sharp cookie cutters

We worked on giving directions.  For some clients we worked on how to give directions politely (Could you cut the cheese please vs. cut the cheese.  HA!  You could work on double meanings and humor here too!)

• Slice
• Cut
• Put on
• Place
• Push down
• Stack 

We worked Spatial Concepts: 

• on 
• under
• behind

AND we worked on /s/ blends: 

• Pretzel STick
• STicky cheese
• SLice
• SMall
• SNack
• STill (e.g. I still need a cookie cutter to cut the bologna)  

Finally we worked on question reversals and requesting information and objects.  As it turns out, I am the MOST forgetful speech language pathologist in the world.  I needed to be reminded about A LOT of the ingredients in this recipe:

• Can I have 
• Do you have
• Could I
• May I have
• Would you mind (if I ate your whole snack?)  
• Can we just (make the snack and stop cuing me for speech targets?)-no.  

What are you doing in your speech rooms for Valentine's Day?