How to Create a Cookbook for Kids

Getting children involved in preparing meals is one of the best ways to teach the importance of eating nutritious meals. Make meal preparation fun by creating a kid's cookbook along the way that showcases their cooking efforts and includes their favorite, yummy recipes.

Instructions

1. Creating a kid's cookbook, or scrapbook of sorts, is a great way to make meal preparation fun and enjoyable for kids. This book will not only hold special, favorite recipes and instructions, but will hold memories that kids can take with them and pass along to their own kids someday.

2. First, decide how many recipes you want the cookbook to include. Allow the child to pick their favorite recipes or foods and be sure to add each to the cookbook. Depending on the age of the child, these recipes could range from a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to hamburgers and french fries.

3. 

   Use 8 1/2 by 11 poster board sheets as your book pages. The amount of pages you need will depend on the number of recipes you will include in the cookbook. Poster board sheets are sturdy and will hold up over time. Punch three holes in the sheets using a 3-hole punch. Place the pages in a 1/2" 3-ring binder. Using the binder will protect the sheets and allows for easy turning of the pages.

4. 

   Allow the child to decorate the outside front and back of the binder as they desire. Some ideas are stickers, paints, glitter, or glued on beads. Just let them use their imagination!

5. 

   Plan a day when you will allow your child to make each of the recipes. Be sure to have a camera ready so you can photograph the various steps along the way. A digital camera would work nicely because it gives you the capability and flexibility of sizing your pictures to whatever size you want. These pictures will be pasted onto the sheet beside each step they correspond with, so the pictures will need to be rather small in size to fit the pages.

6. 

   If the child is old enough, have them write down each step of the recipe they are following. For example, 1. smear peanut butter on bread. 2. Put jelly on top of peanut butter. 3. Put the other piece of bread on top. Make sure someone is taking pictures as the child does each step so they can be posted next to the directions. This also helps if the child is too young to read because they can easily see how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just by looking at the pictures.

7. 

   Continue these steps for each recipe that will be included in the cookbook. To add a special touch, you can add a section on each page that lists the food group(s) that the recipe includes. It is easy to find stock photos online for each of the food groups. Simply print them out and paste onto the pages. This helps children learn the importance of choosing the right foods.