May I Show You to Your Table? Create a Menu March Book Report

Your assignment : Design a Menu Select a chapter book to read. As you read the book become familiar with a character in the story. Now, you are going to pretend that this individual, animal, or make believe creature has decided to go out to eat at his/her/its favorite restaurant. Having met your character in the book you just read, what would the restaurant be like, what would be the restaurant’s theme, and what would be on the menu?

Your Assignment: 1. Create a restaurant 2. Make make-believe menu 3. Include a bill

Select a theme…. This will help to guide the items you serve at your restaurant. What kind of food would your character like? Italian or Greek? French or Caribbean? How about American? Is your character Human? Animal ? Make-believe?

Draw a Restaurant Restaurant: Draw a picture of the restaurant. (We will do this in class.) Name it Select a theme: Western, Sushi, Vegetarian, Italian, Greek, Seafood. Get Crazy if you have to! An index card placed on the back of the restaurant picture will include:  your name  title of the book  author  illustrator  publisher  copyright date Step #1

Name your restaurant

Theme: Mexican

Fraunces Tavern from Phoebe the Spy Theme: Historical

Theme: Oriental

Theme: Italian

Theme: Western

Theme: Western or Barbecue

What will you serve? Remember it needs to be something your book character would like to eat.

Now it’s time to make a menu Select your food and think of ways to describe it Step #2

How would you describe these foods?

What adjectives could describe Mexican food?

Anything come to mind to describe these?

Salmon Filet $12.95 A generous filet of Salmon wrapped in Prosciutto, baked to your preference and drizzled with our maple whole grain mustard sauce. Served with your choice of potato, seasonal vegetable and delicious herb-flavored house salad. Marinara w/ Penne or Linguini $10.50 Your choice of home-made pasta tossed with a healthy richly seasoned marinara sauce and sprinkled generously with freshly ground Kasseri cheese. Ravioli $9.99 Large, tender, cheese-filled ravioli served with your choice of Alfredo, pesto, or marinara sauce, served daily after 2:00 pm. Meat Loaf Dinner $8.99 Our own recipe, freshly baked here just like Mom used to make it. Garden-fresh vegetables and rich gravy top a generous portion of beef meat loaf. Can you spot some descriptive adjectives? Remember… Which? What kind of? How many?

Southern Cook’n Ya’ll

Surf and Turf ~ Why do you think this fits?

Foods have taste, size, temperature, and flavor. We’ll think of several categories and build word banks.

Don’t forget Desserts!

Menu Requirements: Organization: 4 or more Main Categories: Like Appetizers, Entrees, Soups, Salads, and Desserts. Anything else? You decide. 5 or more Food Choices in each category. Your menu must have a minimum of 20 descriptive food selections. Write a Delicious Description of each of the food choices (that makes at least 20 that you will write). Name it and describe it to your customer. Use “deliciously” descriptive adjectives and be specific about the ingredients. Inform your customers about the dish they are about to order. We’ll write some samples of these in class and create a collection of “delicious” adjectives. Price each food item.

See the organization?

Clever ideas!

Can you spot any text features? Can you spot any graphic features?

Examples of past projects

What is wrong with this menu? No description of food items. Just names and prices. Also, look at the crossed out- items. Messy, isn’t it?

Idea for making the Menu: When your family goes out to eat, examine the menu and see how it is organized, read how it describes the food items, look at the graphic features - pictures. Don’t they make you even hungrier? In fact, I’d even ask if I could have one to keep. That might help you quite a bit. Idea for finding Menus: Go to the Internet with your parent and look at menus that are on-line. Many restaurants post them.

Bill: We’ll practice in class. Include a written bill to the character. Pretend your character has come to the restaurant to eat. Take a make-believe order. Write up the cost of the order on a bill and include the tax at 5% or 10%. Determine tip / gratuity. (Attach the bill to the menu you turn in. Use the bills sheets I gave you.) Step #3

Have FUN with this! Be sure to be creative. Decorate the menu using the theme of the restaurant. If your main character is a real animal, you will have to do some research to see the types of food this creature eats so you can include them on the menu. If your main character is make- believe…..lucky you – make it all up!

Your grade will be determined by: The completeness of the assignment, plus creativity, accuracy, and neatness. The picture and menu needs to be colorful, attractive, and easy to read. You may use a computer to format your menu. I would suggest you work with an adult so you can produce attractive results. Formatting this, especially if you want columns, can be frustrating. Extra Credit: Child’s menu An address for your restaurant, A phone number, The hours that it is open, Perks or props (like coloring pages) to keep children busy until their dinner arrives, etc.

Extra Credit: Additional Children’s Menu

Extra Credit : Additional Children’s Menu and fun activities.

So my young scholars, what shall you “cook up” for your Book Report this month? I’m sure it will be perfecto!

Good Luck!