Playing Restaurant

Playing restaurant is a fun way to get kids to write in a way that is meaningful to them.  Today, I made up a menu of possible dinner items and had my elder kids fill out an order form.  When we were done, we added up the total of their meal.  To extend this activity, you could have the kids sort the money by amount into different containers and practice counting by 5s, 10s and 25s.

Gavin wanted to be included in this activity too, so he decided to help make dinner.  This was a great way to carefully introduce simple chopping using a butter knife.  The kids took it to another level and used accents and dressed up.  Such a fun way to mask learning in play.