Apple strudel is ample for motor skills

This week at Kiddy Cook, Anthony made a great kids apple strudel. Along with the lovely songs and details about the ingredients that he learned, this recipe also provided a great opportunity for children to practice their bilateral motor skills.

Bilateral motor skills are ones that require you to use both sides of your body in coordination with each other and is often something kids with autism and other conditions struggle with. In this case, the simple recipe required cutting apples and butter into several small pieces.  This means holding the fruit/butter with one hand and slicing with the dominant one. 

You could use a red safety knife, this will encourage movement skills as you need to use a saw like action to cut through the fruit and requires less pressure than a conventional type.  If your kids need more help with learning to apply pressure then a plastic knife would give them this practice. You could also try using Easigrip scissors.

The recipe includes a teaspoon of sugar.  If your kids don't need or react well to it then don't use it.  We didn't use this and instead had 1/4 sweet apple like golden delicious and 1/4 cooking apple as this makes the filling plenty sweet.  If you don't like mixed textures, miss out the sunflower seeds. 

For final tips,  make four strudels. The would use a two whole apples and nearly a whole sheet of pastry. Finally keep the pastry on the grease proof paper, then no need to worry about dusting and it can go straight in the oven! 

Overall, he had a great time at Kiddy Cook, loved this recipe and all the kids enjoyed eating the finished product.

Links

Kiddy Cook/Cookie Tots - http://www.kiddycook.co.uk/

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