Creating a Restaurant Menu

Many children in the classroom have shown an interest in dramatic play with food and restaurants.  Children love labeling the food we have in the classroom, looking at our classroom menus, preparing their own food, and sharing meals among teachers and other children.   

 We are beginning to explore the different jobs that people have in a restaurant.  This week we explored the idea of making menus.  I provided the children with grocery store advertisements, paper, glue, and scissors, and encouraged them to create their own menus.  The children liked identifying the different food they saw in the advertisements as well as selecting their favorites.  They also enjoyed using the glue sticks and scissors. Some children incorporated the play food with the menu making activity. 

  

As I observed children look through the various advertisements, several of them showed an interest in the cupcakes and cakes pictured.  The children exploring the food near the activity showed some understanding of how something is baked by mixing foods together with utensils and using appliances like a stove top.  I would like to integrate these ideas by providing them with materials we would use while baking.  How do we bake cupcakes? What do we need to bake cupcakes? What do we mix together? Whose job is it to bake?