1. menus and recipe writing

1. MENUS AND RECIPE WRITING
Were I to investigate, I bet I’d find that cookbooks comprise one of the leading informational subject areas in circulation statistics at my school library. For children in third grade and younger, they’d be right up there with dinosaurs. When I was a new public librarian, the first Dewey number I could rattle off from memory was 651.5. As a school librarian, I didn’t need to run a report to see that among the library’s highest circulating books were the Star Wars cookbooks. Chronicle Books, which publishes these titles, has reported that more than half a million copies have been sold to date. And in the Writing Boxes workshops, I’ve found that the recipes and menus programs often lead to the most animated writing sessions.Child’s menu Child’s recipe
I attribute the high interest in cookbooks to a few factors. Most of us like to eat, for one thing. And for many children, cookbooks are an easy read. They’re predictable in format, and you don’t have to cook to enjoy them. Some, like Pretend Soup, have step-by-step illustrations to follow.
Cooking is one of the first family literacy experiences a child has with an adult. The simple question “What do we need from the store to make cookies?” introduces a child to lists, to the act of decoding symbols on a page, and to the connection of those symbols to ingredients at the store and, later, in the mixing bowl.
Creating and writing a recipe is another process that supports family literacy. Writing recipes is the perfect intergenerational activity. Adults can take dictation, or young writers can. It’s a shared experience.
This type of procedural writing can be adapted for other types of do-it-yourself projects. In writing programs, prompts for recipes (“How do I make applesauce?” “How do I bake bread?”) can be opened up for other activities (” How do I make a paper airplane?” How do I start using Minecraft?” or cross-curriculum, “How do I draw a cartoon of a cat?”).
Notes on the Recipes Program
I usually begin by asking, “Does anyone know how to cook?” “YES!” “Grilled cheese!” “Scrambled eggs!” ” Mac and cheese!” “Salad!” I choose a child who named something pretty simple and ask them to teach me how to make it.
What do I need to make scrambled eggs? I write the list of ingredients and draw a simple sketch of each. Am I missing anything? I write the names of any additional ingredients and draw a picture of each.