Miss. Mackenzie's blog 4 Menu Maker

Menu Maker 


Cooking Up Literacy Through Pretend Play!


Materials Needed:

- Pencils, crayons, or markers

- A blank sheet of paper folded in half for menus (or you can use the image above to have a premade    menu)

- Toy food/ kitchen play items

- Notepad for taking orders

- All optional for added dramatic play: Fake money, apron, table to eat at


How to play


- For this activity, your child is going to become a chef and are going to create their own menu using their folded paper.

- Have your child write a menu at the top of the paper, and then they can let their creativity flow using real or fake dishes to put on the menu. They can also add the prices of each item. 

- Do not worry about the spelling errors, as this is about phonetic writing, not vocabulary.

- Invite family members ( or just yourself ) to play the customers in her restaurant. Have your child hand you the menu and treat you as a paying customer. As you take your order, have your child use their notepad to take down your orders to deliver them to the kitchen to be made.

- Once they have finished making your food, they will come back to the table and serve it to the customers. (You can use fake food, real snacks, printed out food items, or even playdough food) Let their creativity run wild!

- Once you have finished your food, you can have your child refer back to the menu and the items you ordered to give you a total for your order.

- You can continue this game by completing the menu or even switching roles with your child and having them place their own order for you to make for them.



Learning  Benefits


- Phonetics and spelling (sounding out words and writing them down, even if it's incorrect)

- Math (adding the prices of the dishes and coming up with the correct total bill)

- Vocabulary growth (exposing them to new food words and descriptive language)

- Social- Social-emotional learning (practice manners, turn-taking, and role-playing)






Photo from "TheKindergartenConnection"

- Mackenzie Pace

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