Cooking With Kids

This topic proved to be a favourite with ABE classes. It was an excellent opportunity to integrate math related skills (measurement, fractions, and money related arithmetic for preparing the recipe, etc.) into language literacy instructional aims. Learners opted to do cooking as a group on a biweekly basis;everyone decided on a recipe to be tried and they shared bringing in ingredients. Favourite native recipes, as well as things like pizza, were made from scratch, with discussions of what were most economical ways of making items. After in-class testing, learners had to try them at home and report on how successfully these recipes were received.

Goals

• involve other members of the family in cooking
• introduce new vocabulary for creating nutritious and economical meals
• use literacy and numeracy skills in cooking
• identify ways parents can teach their children during shared cooking

Implementation

• Bring in cookbooks to be used with children.
• Decide on recipes to be tried.
• Study cooking methods and ingredients.
• Classroom cooking every second Thursday.
• Class recipe book of favourite recipes.

Evaluation

• learners must try recipes with their families
• questionnaire sent home to family to evaluate success of two meals
• conference with individual students about collected recipes in student portfolio
• learners will select on favourite recipe for class collection