If you haven’t seen it yet, we recently released a lesson on Food Storage and Safety. This lesson is the first to feature Floreo's new kitchen environment. The Learner is asked to select a place in the kitchen (either the cabinet, a bowl on the kitchen table, the fridge or the freezer) to store specific food items that emerge from a grocery bag. Consider some of the following ideas for pre-teaching, generalization, and extension activities: 

Pre-teaching: 

• If you have access to a real kitchen, ask the Learner to go in and look in various storage spaces, especially the refrigerator, the freezer, the cabinet and the counter. 
  • Ask what things feel like inside the refrigerator as compared to the freezer. What kinds of foods would they find in the cabinet?, etc.
• Go into VR and ask the Learner to look around the kitchen before beginning the lesson to find and label potential storage spaces. 
  • Name some things that you might have in those spaces. 
• Establish rules/tendencies for types of foods that typically are stored in specific locations. 
  • For example, "Frozen foods need to be stored in the freezer until they are ready to be cooked or eaten." 
• For Learners who are still emerging readers, take screenshots of the various signs that appear at each location in the Floreo kitchen. Before starting this lesson, help the Learner decode and comprehend the meaning behind each sign. This will facilitate the selection process and ensure accuracy when the emerging reader goes to make choices in the Floreo kitchen. 

Generalization: 

• The next time you return from the store, consider putting a small number of items in a specific bag. Ask the Learner to only put those specific items away in an adequate location.  
• Ask the Learner to explain why a particular item should be stored in a particular location. 
• If a Learner is at the beginning stages of understanding the skill of sorting groceries, be sure to limit the number of items in the bag and limit the number of locations where the item could be stored. This will help the Learner understand when the task is completed and will help ensure success. 

Extension activities: 

• While in the Floreo kitchen, but before starting the VR session, help the Learner develop situational awareness in the kitchen. 
  • Identify the areas of the room and what they are used for: table for eating or doing homework; couch or lounge for watching a TV show; cabinets for storage; stove for cooking, etc. 
  • Identify the items in the room that you must handle with care (e.g., sharp knives on the wall, breakable dishes, hot stove, etc.) 
  • Identify appliances that are hot or cold. (Identify what appliances get hot on the inside and on the outside (toaster) as compared to others that get hot on the inside but generally stay cool on the outside (microwave), etc. 
• Consider pairing this lesson with Time Management: Organizational Habits and compare the machines you would find behind the concession stand in the movie theater with the kinds of machines you find at home. 
• Consider pairing this lesson with Orienting to the Grocery Store and determining where in the grocery store a particular item would be found. 

One last thought: Address the need to be flexible with some of the items that emerge from the grocery bag. While ice cream needs to be stored in the freezer, you might need to take an item out of the freezer for a short time to thaw before it is eaten or cooked. There might be different preferences in different locations for where food is stored. Some people might store something in the refrigerator while others feel it belongs on the counter. Being flexible, but also prioritizing safety, are important problem solving skills that can be outlined for Learners.

Floreo's Director of Applied Digital Therapy, Rita Solórzano MA, CCC-SLP, is a Speech Language Pathologist with over 30 years of experience.