Restaurant role play

• Notepad or paper
• Pencils or pens
• Your kitchen/dining table
• Family members.

Mark-making – assigning meaning to the marks and scribbles they make is a vital part of the journey to becoming a confident writer. Imagination and expressive role play, recreating experiences.

Make mealtime more exciting. This is a great way to liven up lunch or dinner!

Create a restaurant. This could be set up around your dining table. Talk about the things that might be in a restaurant e.g. plants, flowers on the table, table cloth. Have a notepad or some paper available with pencils/pens to pretend to be a waiter, ‘writing’ the orders down. Making scribbles and talking about what they mean is a valuable learning experience for your child and a sign of a developing writer! 

Agree on the dishes that will be on offer e.g. different sandwich fillings/toast toppings/cereals, etc. Your child could make signs with pictures of the choices. They can then pretend to be a waiter and ask all the family for their orders. Help set up the table together and serve the meal. You could even do some cooking together to then serve up at your restaurant, so your child can play at being a chef too!