• Have you ever eaten at a restaurant?
• What's different about eating in a restaurant instead of eating at home?
• Who works in a restaurant?

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Open discussion about restaurants. Who has eaten at a restaurant? What happened when they ate at a restaurant?
• Read a book (ex: Pizza at Sally’s by Monica Wellington)

Free Play:

• Turn your kitchen dramatic play into a restaurant
• Play dough with cooking utensils
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Restaurants have menus. What is a menu? Bring 5 pieces of blank paper to circle with pictures of the foods you'll be serving at lunch or snack (whichever one you provide for your kids). Label each paper for the day of the week. Invite your kids to help you put the pictures in the right spots to show the menu for each day. Write the name of the food next to the picture. If possible hang the menu where kids can see them each day so you can discuss the menu.
• Read a book (ex: The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman)

Free Play:

• Restaurant dramatic play, add in menus you gather from local restaurants
• Create menus using pictures of food, paper, markers, scissors, and glue
• Snack-cutting station (invite your kids to prep snack for later!)

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Eating at a restaurant requires manners. Review the kind words that should be used at restaurants (and even at home!).
• Read a book (ex: How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food by Jane Yolen)

Free Play:

• Play dough with knives or other cutting implements
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing
• Sand play with pots, pans, utensils
• Snack-cutting station (invite your kids to prep snack for later!)

Snack Time:

• Challenge your kids to use kind words at meal times.

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Cook a new recipe together. One suggestion: pancakes! This is especially great if you have an electric skillet where you can cook the pancakes right at kid-level.
• Click here to download an example of a Rebus recipe for pancakes
• Read a book (ex: Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie de Paola)

Free Play:

• Play dough with spatulas
• Water play "potion" or "recipe" mixing using food coloring
• Sand play with pots, pans, utensils

Snack Time:

• Serve pancakes at snack. Talk about how you made them.
• Invite kids to "order" the toppings they want on their pancakes (maple syrup, berries, whipped cream, peanut butter, etc.)

Morning Meeting / Circle Time:

• Review recipe you made the day before. Can your kids recall all the steps you took to make the recipe? Can they recall what they ate on their pancakes?
• Read a book (ex: read Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie de Paola again)

Free Play:

• Table setting activity-- put out cups, plates, silverware, napkins, etc. and invite kids to practice setting the table
• Decorate placemats-- invite kids to decorate large pieces of paper with the materials of your choosing. Laminate them or cover them with contact paper to turn them into place mats for them to use at meal times.

Local businesses are often excited at the prospect of small visitors. If you have a local coffee shop or restaurant, call and see if they would be open to having visitors come in.

If you're able to see the kitchen, challenge kids to find the cooking utensils you've been talking about:

• What do they notice?
• What are the restaurant workers wearing?
• What foods do they see?
• What tools do they see?

You could turn this into a scavenger hunt. Ahead of the visit make a list of the things you think you might see (ex: menus, tables, waiters, cooks, etc.) and then while you are at the restaurant encourage kids to look for these items. Check them off your list when you find them.

After your visit you can go back over what you did and did not see (this is a great exercise for working on memory!).

• What was missing?
• Why do you think it was missing?
• Did you see anything surprising?