How to Design a Holiday Menu for Thanksgiving for a Restaurant
Designing a holiday menu for Thanksgiving is a creative way to teach literacy and research skills. Thinking about what type of restaurant to design the menu for gives students practice in writing down some objectives and ideas. Children enjoy the process of creating their own menu for a restaurant. It is creative and involves writing about food. Learning about different types of Thanksgiving menus helps a child design the menu for this exercise.
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Instructions
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Discuss with the children what type of restaurant they will design their menus for on Thanksgiving. Will it be a steakhouse, Chinese restaurant, Colonial inn, seafood restaurant, Italian or Mexican, for example? Pass out paper and have them begin searching the Internet for ideas on how different countries celebrate Thanksgiving. You might want to use the Food Network Traditional Menu to show students a sample menu. It lists traditional holiday meals. See Resources below for a link to this menu. Many holiday meals in different restaurants will be similar to the ones cooked in the U.S. The main entree would be the turkey with trimmings, and side dishes can be stuffing, potatoes and even cranberry sauce. Tell the children to take detailed notes instead of printing everything out.
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Research the type of restaurant and holiday menu that you want to design for Thanksgiving. Another good site is Gourmet's Five All American Thanksgiving Menus. It gives five different Thanksgiving menus found across the United States (see Resources).
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Consider your students' traditions. If you work with kids from ethnic populations, provide links for Thanksgiving holiday menus that represent their traditions. The Bella Online page, How Hispanics Celebrate Thanksgiving, lists many food items cooked on Thanksgiving. Another site, Soulful Thanksgiving, gives a holiday menu for African-American families. Check Resources for the links.
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Have the children write a brief description of the type of restaurant they are designing the menu for. It can be a Colonial inn around 1800 with elegant tablecloths and fine silverware, or a Mexican restaurant with festive colors, bright tablecloths and spicy entrees. Have them write a paragraph about the restaurant before they design the menu. It should include type of restaurant, layout or what it looks like inside, table decor/design and type of food served. Have them describe the outside and inside of the restaurant. They should choose a name for the restaurant to put on the menu.
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Look over the restaurant descriptions. Tell students what appetizers are (finger foods served before a meal, similar to a snack). The menu should include soup and salad. Include the main entree, side dishes and vegetables. Don't forget dessert! Pass out blank paper and have the children draw straight lines and label each section of the menu before they write the food items.
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Write the menu items for each section or category of the menu. Each item should have few sentences to describe the food or recipe. What is it made with? How is it served? Use descriptive adjectives when describing the food on the menu. The children can add a design or artwork to the menu to make it more attractive. When they are finished, the children can read their menus in front of the class or hang them on your Thanksgiving bulletin board.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure your students don't copy information from websites word for word when doing this exercise. Kids will often take the easy route and do this. Encourage them to design an original menu and restaurant using information and their imagination.
