If a recipe is a list of ingredients with directions for putting them together so they turn into something,  then there a whole lot of things we can make recipes for.

A Recipe for Fun

Ingredients

1 Teacher

5 Children

5 Rubber Balls

2 Laundry Baskets

Have the children set up the laundry baskets on opposite ends of the large group rug.  Bounce the 3 rubber balls into the center of the rug.  Encourage the children to bounce, throw, and play. Observe how they make up their own games with the balls and baskets.

Good Friends Recipe

 Ingredients

All the Children in this Room

Nice words

Smiles

Kindness

Lots of Playing

Mix together all day long and friendship will result.

A Recipe for a Good Day

Ingredients

Not too hot and not too cold weather

A little bit of sunshine

Good friends all around

A morning snack

An afternoon nap

A delicious lunch

Lots of time outdoors

Play, play, play

A teacher who loves us

Books, books, and more books

Make sure you check off each of the ingredients above to create the perfect day!

Here’s one that is virtually fool-proof.  Perfect for an afternoon snack- make them in the morning, refrigerate, and then toast in the afternoon for a healthy, home-made treat that the children make themselves.

Pizza Bagels

Ingredients

Frozen whole grain bagels (mini-bagels are great too)

Low-fat shredded mozzarella cheese

Pizza sauce (be sure to look at the labels as many pizza sauces are filled with sugar)

Instructions

Separate the bagels into halves

Have each child take a half of a bagel (or 2 halves if you are using mini-bagels)

Place small bowls of pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese around the table and give each child a spoon

Have the children spread their pizza sauce on their bagel and then decorate with the cheese

Place them on a cookie sheet or the toaster oven tray and make a map of where to find each child’s creations

Toast until cooked.

Serve the children their very own Pizza Bagel!

There are lots of opportunities to use math vocabulary during this food experience.  The most obvious is that bagels are nearly always cut in half.  Make sure to ask the children if they want “a half of a bagel,” or “two-halves or a whole bagel.”  Words like “some” cheese, or “a lot” of sauce should be used and then reinforced with relative comparisons, such as, “You used a lot of cheese, but only a little sauce, while Maria used only a little bit of cheese and a lot of sauce.”

I recently spent some time observing 2 groups of young children as they used recipes to cook banana bread and make silly putty.  Although both activities were well-planned, organized, and executed, the silly putty activity included so much more math because the teacher used a recipe card that was designed for children.

So what makes a good recipe for young children?

1.  Images of the ingredients- these should look exactly like the ingredients that you will be using so the children can recognize them immediately.  It isn’t helpful to have a picture of a box of salt and then to use a bowl of salt when you are actually cooking.

2.  Large, easy-to-read numbers and quantities –  Whole numbers are best.

3.  Visual representations of quantity – If you are using a measuring cup or spoon, be sure to have those measuring tools represented on the recipe card.

4.  Instructions should be written in single words and pictures.  You don’t have to write, “Stir all the ingredients together.”  Simply write “Stir” with a picture depicting “stirring.”   The message will be clear and the children will understand what is expected.

This is a picture of the Silly Putty Recipe Card that was just perfect for the children.  This teacher created her own recipe card and took pictures of each item needed in the recipe.  The children followed along closely as they each made their own batch of silly putty.  Brilliant.