Planning Sheet for Theme: Restaurant

Planning Sheet for Theme: Restaurant

Areas to Address / Possible Content or Play Activities / Toys or Materials
Cognitive
Memory / ●  Naming the restaurant based on familiar signs, packaging, etc.
●  Recalling and talking about past experiences in restaurants
●  Points to pictures on menu / ●  Items with restaurant logos (e.g. McDonalds french fry box, Burger King hat, Chick-fil-A cup, etc.)
●  Menu with pictures
Problem solving / ●  Using diverse materials to create something (food)
●  Sorting items by group (clearing the table and putting all plates, cups, spoons, etc. together) / ●  String, paper, play-doh, accordion tubes, balls, cotton, etc.
●  Utensils, plates, etc.
Social Cognition / ●  Using manner words (please and thank you)
●  Ascribing thoughts and feelings to play figures / ●  Dolls or miniatures
Complexity of Play / ●  Symbolic play with realistic and unrealistic substitutions
●  Pretending to eat and drink
●  Role playing (chef, waiter, customer) / ●  Play-doh for “spaghetti”, balls for “meatballs”, strip of white paper for “milk” in a cup
●  Utensils, fake food
●  Dress up clothes
Math/Science / ●  counting money
●  identifying numbers on register, coupons
●  classify objects (ie, ordering ‘dessert’) / ●  cash register, play money
●  coupons
●  fake food
Literacy / ●  menu book (turn pages, find and label objects)
●  identify alphabet letters
●  connect stories to real life experiences
●  recite simple stories from familiar books
●  take orders, draw a pizza / Books: Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
Waiter, Waiter
Eating the Alphabet
Writing: paper, notebooks, crayons, pencils
Language/Communication
Vocabulary / ●  offering food: name what is available at the restaurant
●  looking at/ordering from the menu
●  setting the table: have child identify items/hand them to play facilitator AND/OR
●  Cooking and serving food: narrate steps of cooking
●  specific: placemat, plate, bowl, cup, spoon, fork, knife, napkin, menu, waiter, chef, order, breakfast, lunch, dinner, kitchen, stove, sink, oven, cook, bake, pot, pan, spatula
●  core: sit, on, eat, more, want, help, me/mine, you/yours, it, this, that, different, some, all, give, write / ●  table, chair
●  place setting: placemat, plate, bowl, cup, spoon, fork, knife, napkin
●  take-out menus
●  chef’s hat
●  play kitchen with stove, sink, oven, pots, pans, spatula
Pragmatics / ●  Conversational turns
●  requesting: “I want__” or “___ please”
●  sharing: “some for me and some for you” or “here is your ___”
●  likes/dislikes: “Yum! I like___” or “Yuck! I don’t like___” / ●  waiter pad, pencil
●  take-out menus
●  tray
●  table, chair, place setting
Sensorimotor
Gross motor / ●  Carrying a tray to the table.
●  reaching to top shelf to retrieve an item(on tippy toes)
●  pulling out a chair to sit.
●  sitting in a chair / ●  Tray
●  Shelf
Fine Motor / ●  write a menu, food order or check. grasp, pre-writing skills
●  pick up foods from oven or stove with tongs - grasp
●  cutting Velcro fruit - bilateral hand use
●  draw out pretend foods on paper and decorate with stickers (i.e. draw a circle for pizza, cut out, use stickers as toppings)- fine motor grasp, in-hand manipulation
●  handle money to pay check / ●  pad of paper, crayon or marker,
●  tongs
●  Velcro fruit and plastic knife / pretend foods
●  paper, markers, scissors and stickers
●  coins, slotted container, cash register
Sensory / ●  prepare pretend food with playdoh
●  decorate “food” with beans or dry pasta
●  water play to “wash” dishes / ●  playdoh, cookie cutters, rolling pin
●  bean box or dry pasta
●  water bin
Vision / ●  imitation of pre-writing strokes, letters or number when writing menu or check
●  identifying restaurant signs / ●  pad and paper
●  print outs on walls of McD, Taco Bell, etc.
Emotional and Social
Expression / ●  Showing empathy to a crying, hungry baby / ●  Baby doll
Adaptation / ●  Coming up with alternatives for customers (“out of” customer’s order choice) / ●  Food materials, menu
Regulation / ●  Tries to “right” a “wrong” or “fix” a situation when a customer is unhappy / ●  None
Internal conflicts, if concern / ●  Scolding from an angry “boss” or “customer” / ●  Dolls or miniature figures
Social interactions / ●  Sociodramatic and cooperative pretend play reflecting the same theme as a peer
●  Engaging in 20-30 circles of communication (verbal, gestures, physical) / ●  Another peer or an adult

NC Early Learning Network is a joint project of the NC Department Of Public Instruction, Office Of Early Learning
and UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute