Grades K-2
Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8
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Writing
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Our Favorite Recipes: Book Creator Activity

Use Book Creator to make a classroom cookbook by reflecting on students’ favorite foods, special memories and traditions, and culture.

Activity Partner
Total time estimate:
60+ minutes
Activity Objectives
  • Students will share about their favorite foods, including any special memories, traditions, or holidays that are associated with them
  • Then, students will create a classroom cookbook by sharing the recipe for their favorite food, explore their classmates’ recipes and stories, and reflect on what food reveals about people’s culture, experiences, and community


This activity supports the development of the following
social-emotional skills: relationship skills, self-awareness, and social awareness.

Create

Engage students in a classroom discussion around food. You might ask:

  • What are some of your favorite foods? What feelings come to mind when you think about these foods?
  • How would you describe their flavors, textures, and smells?
  • Can you share any special memories about making or eating these foods?
  • What role does food play in bringing people together? Have you ever had an experience where food helped you connect with others? (E.g., sharing a meal with loved ones, attending an event that celebrates food, having someone teach you to make a special recipe, etc.)
  • Are there any foods that you eat during special occasions or holidays? What is the significance of these events for you?
  • Have you tried food from a different region or culture before? What did you like about it? How was it similar/different to other food that you’ve had before?

After your discussion, introduce the activity to students: working together to create a classroom cookbook! Each student will add the recipe for a food that is important or special to them, along with any photos, stories, or videos about this food. To do this, you will need to follow these instructions:

  1. Sign up for a free Book Creator account (if you don’t have one already).
  2. Navigate to your Teacher Dashboard and add a new library for your class.
  3. Click on the “+New Book” button, and select the “Cookbook” template.
  4. Invite your students to join your library using the code provided.
  5. Students can create a copy of the “Cookbook” template in your library and add their own pages to their copy, including a recipe and photo of their favorite food, and/or a video of themselves making the food or describing a special memory about it. Students can upload photos and videos, record audio, add text, draw, and more directly on the platform.  

After all your students have created their pages, you can combine their pages together to create a class cookbook!

Share

Once you combine and finish your classroom cookbook, publish it online! Share a link to your cookbook with your Empatico partner class, and facilitate a live virtual exchange to invite students to share more about their recipes, tell stories about making and eating them, and ask each other questions about their favorite foods. You might even challenge them to try making a recipe from each other’s cookbook!

Reflect

Guide students through a post-activity reflection by asking the following questions:

  • How was the experience of working together to create our class cookbook? How do you feel when you read through it?
  • What did you enjoy about this activity?
  • What did you learn about our classmates from the recipes and stories that they shared?
  • What does food reveal about our culture, traditions, experiences, and community?
  • Were there any similarities between the foods that you and your classmates enjoy eating?
  • What is a new food that you want to try preparing or eating?


This activity was created in partnership with Book Creator.

Did you finish this activity? We'd love your input.