Pancake Day 2018

On Pancake day this year Tom and I had a lot of fun! It can be tricky to think of ideas for children who are not able to eat orally, to get involved in pancake day. I hope this blog post will be able to give you some ideas for the next pancake day.

I like to ensure that Tom can fully participate in all the days of the year that we celebrate, pancake day is no different. Tom cannot eat orally but this doesn't mean we don't enjoy pancakes! This year the whole day was dedicated to some kind of pancake play.

To start off the day Tom stood in his standing frame and we explored our favourite fillings for pancakes, Nutella and banana. I mashed the banana up to make it super gloopy for Tom to explore, I added a big dollop of Nutella to the side and just let Tom go wild. I used the 'hand under hand' technique with Tom to begin with as it was a new texture and a new sensory exploration. Tom took to it very quickly exploring both textures and mixing them together, Tom played for a good 45 minutes, getting super messy and very, very sticky.

At lunch time Tom and I made pancakes. Tom mixed all the batter using his switch and his mains switch controller (see baking blog post for more information). Tom seems to love mixing the batter up and making the kitchen aid turn on and off....and on and off... and on and off. It can sometimes take a little while! Once we were done mixing, we cooked the pancakes ready for us to eat and Tom to play with. Although Tom cannot cook the pancakes he was able to sit with me and enjoy all of the sensory smells coming from the cooking, he was also playing with the first pancake we had made once it cooled.

After lunch Tom and I explored a cooked pancake, we had already explored what goes into a pancake and what the batter feels like, now we wanted to explore what a cooked pancake feels like. I decided to make even more mess with Tom and we filled his pancake with paint! Tom used the pancake as almost a paintbrush and created a beautiful piece of art work with his feet. Tom seemed to love the texture of the paint mixed with a warm cooked pancake. After this activity Tom was tired of pancake day and his normal foot spa resumed!

I really enjoyed pancake day 2018 with Tom, not only did we have a lot of fun making pancakes together but the whole days activities followed a lovely consisitant rhythm. As Tom's 'teacher' I enjoy days like this a lot.

I hope this has inspired even just one of you to think outside the box when it comes to pancake day! Let me know what you guys have been up to on this years pancake day and what your favourite fillings are.