Healthy Sandwiches for Teens
August is National Sandwich Month and the hot weather is a perfect time to help teens explore the cooking skill of making sandwiches. Especially teens with special needs can use an extensive repertoire of sandwich recipes. With whole grain bread, a protein source and a healthy serving of vegetables, either on or with the sandwich, this simple combination can be a boon for healthy food choices.
Helping Students Create Healthy Sandwiches
Here is a free lesson for you and your students on creating healthy sandwiches. Depending on your class circumstances, you can use this lesson in several ways:
Have a potluck! Let students each bring in an ingredient to make sandwiches. Assign bread/protein/cheese/veggies to one-fourth of your class so that you have a nice mix of ingredients. Add condiments (shop at the $1 store) and lay out the results. Let students create their own masterpieces then record each sandwich via cell phone pictures or the written word to show students how wide a variety of sandwiches they can make from a few ingredients.
Have a photo contest! Let students create their own masterpieces at home and record their efforts using cell phone photos or video. Have a photo/film festival to showcase the different kinds of sandwiches.
Create a collage! Have students cut ingredients from old magazines to create a “Sandwich Showcase” collage depicting the myriad ingredients that can be used in a sandwich. Have a “Crazy Sandwich” contest whereby students make up the craziest set of ingredients that they might eat in a sandwich.
For More Information
For a more comprehensive cooking unit, the Daily Living Skills series provides titles such as Kitchen Basics, Nutrition, Grocery Shopping, Making Meals and Picking Produce—Fruits and Picking Produce—Veggies. Like all books in the series, these are written on a 3rd/4th-grade level but nevertheless, honor a teen’s sensibilities and maturity while meeting Indicator 13 skills and federally mandated transition services for teens with special needs.
