Summer School Activity - Writing a Recipe

Today's activity is brought to you by the cutest boy in the world. Here he is showing off the final product of our school time today: a delicious loaf of pear bread.

Here is an easy way to incorporate baking and cooking into your school work for the day:

Materials:
Computer/Printer
White paper/cardstock
Extra paper/cardstock in color of your choice
Scissors (for adult)
Glue sticks

Prep Work: I Googled images of each of the ingredients in our recipe. I tried to stick to non-brand pictures for most of it, except for the baking powder because I didn't want it to get mixed up with baking soda. I copied each image and pasted it into a Word Document. I also wrote out the words for each of the ingredients in Comic Sans MS (I find this to be the closest font to the way they teach kids how to write). I cut out each image and word individually. Total prep time: 20 minutes.


Directions for kids:
My two year old had all of the pictures of ingredients in front of her. I had her find each ingredient as I read it from the main recipe. She then pasted each one on the extra colored cardstock.

As Little Miss found each ingredient, I had my four year-old find the word that matched it. He definitely can't read them, but he is working on using sounds he hears me say to figure out which word matches.

After he found each word, he pasted it next to the picture of the ingredient. (I should also note that ahead of time I had him copy the words "Pear Bread" on the top and explained that this is how we know what we are making.)

It took up both sides of the paper, but it is three-hole punched and is now in our school notebook for safekeeping.

After we wrote the recipe, I had the kiddos call out the ingredients and I found them in our supplies. Then together we baked some pear bread. We were able to make 2 smaller loaves with this recipe, one with raisins and one without. It can also make one big loaf if that is what you prefer.

Here is the finished product. Go ahead, be jealous of my breakfast for the next few days...

Modifications for different ages and abilities:
-For kids that are learning their letter sounds - only print out the first letter of each ingredient instead of the whole word.
-For kids that can already read - add the amount of each ingredient and cut out separately, then have the child find both the word and the amount to use.
-For kids that are learning how to add fractions - add amounts that, when summed together, make the total amount of each ingredient. For example: The recipe calls for 1 2/3 cups of sugar. Instead write 1/3 5 times and have them figure out the amount of 1/3 cups needed to make the total.

Pear Bread Recipe: (You didn't think I would leave that out, did you?)
-3 cups pureed pears (also works with zucchini instead!)
-1 2/3 cups sugar
-2/3 cups vegetable oil
-2 tsp. vanilla
-3 cups of flour
-4 eggs
-1 tsp. salt
-1 tbs. cinnamon
-1/2 tsp. baking powder
-Optional: 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottoms of 2 loaf pans. Mix fruit, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans. Bake 50-60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves and remove from pans. Cool completely before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temp up to 4 days, refrigerate up to 10 days. Also freezes really nicely.

PS - This party has been linked up!