Challenge preschoolers to set a restaurant table by drawing and cutting out the items they’d find there. Ask students to remember a time they were taken to a restaurant and what they saw on the table. Items include plates, bowls, silverware, ketchup and mustard, sugar packets and napkins. If students are having trouble drawing each item, provide them with simple outlines in black pen that they can color. Have an adult supervisor help preschoolers cut out the shapes.
This activity helps preschoolers understand what makes a complete meal, as presented at a restaurant. Hand out a sheet of paper to each student that has the outline of a plate. Ask students to draw a well-balanced restaurant meal on their plate. Each student should include a vegetable, a protein source and a starch in acceptable proportions. For fun, hand out a second plate and have students draw their “dream meals” for comparison. This meal can include anything from heaping scoops of ice cream to triple-decker hamburgers. Decorate these drawings with stickers, construction paper, gems, beads and other glue-on items.
Give each preschooler a blank sheet of paper and have them create a menu for their dream restaurants. Working closely with an adult assistant, preschoolers choose drinks, appetizer items, main dishes and desserts. Once the items are chosen and written in with help from the adult assistant, students color in and decorate their menus, then present them to the class one by one.
To get preschoolers thinking more deeply about restaurants, list the available positions in each restaurant, such as host, server, chef and owner. Ask each preschooler to pick the one he likes the most. Preschoolers then draw a figure representing someone in this profession on a piece of cardboard or sturdy craft paper. With the help of an adult, preschoolers decorate, cut out and glue these figures to a popsicle stick. As a fun follow-up, arrange preschoolers into even teams and have them plan and act out a simple restaurant skit with the help of an adult.