GUEST BLOGGER ANA SIQUEIRA
In my book Bella’s Recipe for Success, Bella tries and tries again until she gets the recipe right. So, let’s show our students that by experimenting and trying again and again, we can make the perfect recipe – to cook, to build, and to write.
Baking – your students will
- Get a recipe for a simple cookie. You can use Bella’s Recipe for polvorones.
- Make a basic dough.
- Divide the dough into four parts.
- Add an additional ingredient or MORE of one ingredient to each part of the dough. Students should keep track of what they added and how much. Ingredients might include sugar, vanilla, eggs, salt, caramel, chocolate chips, lemon juice, etc.
- Bake the cookies.
- Taste them and check for texture, taste, appearance, and more. Students should make notes or teacher should make notes for the class.
- Choose their favorites.
Building – Your students will
- Bring a small stuffed animal/doll.
- Make a Twisted Torre (Tower) with a slide using:
- Wooden clothespins
- Binder Clips – 3/4 inch wide
- Colored jumbo Craft (popsicle) sticks – 6 inches
- Answer some questions:
- What is the best foundation to build your tower on? (Sand, floor, box, grass, etc.)
- How many sticks did you use for each floor?
- How many more would you need to build two more floors?
- Try to build using as few clips as possible. How many did you use?
- How many sticks do you need so the doll can go through the tower, or so the doll will get stuck?
- How much weight (or how many dolls/stuffed animals) can your tower hold? How can you make it stronger?
Writing – your students will
Words make sentences. Sentences make stories. Cut the words out in the chart below. Mix and match, and ask students to make sentences and stories. You can also add more words, not related to the book.
| Bella | needs | to prove | she | is |
| good | at | something. | Bella | isn’t |
| great | at gymnastics | Bella | isn’t | the best |
| piano | player | Bella | wants | to learn |
| how | to bake. | Abuela | helps | her |
| But | her | cookies | are | as hard as |
| Bella | tries | again | And | again |
| a rock. | She | gets | her | cookies |
| right | Bella’s | brother | and | sister |
| also | makes | mistakes. | To get | better |
| at | something | you | must | practice |
| Bella | learns | we | can | always |
| try | again | don’t | ever | quit |
Next, they will
Use the blank template to come up with their own word bank, and together with a partner, they will use their words to create stories. They need to have nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, subject pronouns, etc. The teacher can use the words in the example list above to highlight those types of words.
Featured image credit: “35 – Get Ready, Get Set, Write” by MellieRene4 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
Ana Siqueira is a Spanish-language teacher and an award-winning children’s book author. Her books include Bella’s Recipe for Success (Beaming Books 2021), If Your Babysitter is a Bruja (S&S 2022), Abuela’s Super Capa/ La Supercapa de Abuela (HarperCollins 2023), Boitatá (Capstone 2023), Our World Brazil (Barefoot Books 2023), La Mala Suerte is Following Me (Charlesbridge 2024), Vera la Valiente is Scared (Beaming Books 2025), Sticky Hermana (Charlesbridge 2025), Mami’s Heart (HarperCollins 2026), If Your Abuelo is an Astronaut (Simon&Schuster 2026) among others. She also has a chapter book series coming soon titled The Creepy Creature Catchers. Ana co-founded Latinxpitch, a pitch event to promote Latin authors and illustrators. She is a global educator and PBS Media innovator. She lives in Tampa Bay with her husband and enjoys playing with her Cuban-Brazilian-American grandkids.
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