Materials
- menus
- small tablets
- pencils
- clothesline
- clothespins
Instructions
- If possible, visit a restaurant, including the kitchen area. If not, read books about restaurants and ask some restaurant employees to visit your classroom.
- Set up the dramatic play or house area to represent a restaurant. Place a table and chairs behind the kitchen appliances so that the food prep area is separate from where the "customers" eat. Tie a clothesline over the food prep area to clip food orders. Put out the menus, tablets, and pencils.
- Encourage the children to take turns playing different roles (cooks, food servers, customers). Model for or encourage the "food servers" to use the tablets to write down what their "customers" order. The food server can clip the orders to the clothesline for the cooks to refer to it as they prepare the food in the kitchen.
Instructions
1. Ask the children to describe the last time they were at a supermarket. As
they tell their stories, note the things they saw at the supermarket on a large
piece of paper. Talk about the items. For example, if a child says he saw a
mop, ask what a mop is used for.
2. Ask the children to cut out newspaper or magazine photos of the things
they saw at the supermarket. Try to find at least four examples of each item.
3. Label one paper grocery bag "Food Items" and the other "Non-Food Items."
Simpler labels might be
"Food" and "Not Food."
4. Ask the children to
sort their pictures into
the correct bag. As
they sort, talk about
each item.
5. For an older group of
children, increase
the number of
sorting bags. For
example, have
four bags
labeled "Fruit,"
Vegetables,"
"Meat," and "Cleaning
Items." Ask the children to sort
their pictures accordingly. Add more bags and labels according to the
children's skill levels.
More to do Art: After the children finish sorting, let them use the cutouts to create a
supermarket collage.
