Following a Recipe

I admit...I am a terrible recipe follower. 

Not because I can't.  I just don't. I always "have" to add just a little something...or cut an ingredient, or tweak a step just a bit. I don't leave well enough alone very often. 

My son has been practicing sequencing lately as part of his reading comprehension.  His last few projects involved reading a recipe and labeling the placement of each step within that recipe.  So his page looked something like this:

Directions for making Peanut Butter Cracker Cookies:

Get out your crackers and peanut butter. Put peanut butter on half of the crackers and then cover with the other half. Melt chocolate. Dip the cracker sandwiches into chocolate with a fork or spoon. Let the chocolate drip from the cracker into the bowl. Cool cookies on wax paper.  Eat the cookies! 

Fill in the blanks with a number to tell the order of each step in the recipe.

______ Dip the crackers in chocolate.

______ Put peanut butter on the crackers.

______ Eat the cookies!

______ Get our your peanut butter.

______ Melt the chocolate.

______ Cool the cookies.


I thought it would be fun to actually MAKE some cookies as part of his assignment...so we did! 

+

=

[Yum!]

And we had lots of fun making them.  He was so excited!  Afterward, he told me it was [and I quote]: "Waaaaay too much fun, Mom.  I forgot I even had a Wii!" [Hahahahaha!  That just cracks me up.]

Of course, I HAD to modify the recipe...but in the spirit of learning to follow directions, we did follow all the steps.  I just added sprinkles on top at the end. :)

Once we had coated all of our cookies, we had some chocolate leftover, so we found a bag of pretzels and dipped them in too!  Yum! 

Here is a link to a recipe for similar cookies.*  You could simplify just about any recipe and do this exercise with your kids...they might even have so much fun they forget all about that Wii, or _________ [you fill in the blank with whatever they love to play with].


*[Since Ritz and most peanut butters contain hydrogenated oils, we found similar "healthier" crackers and peanut butter in the natural food section of our grocery store...and they tasted just as great!]