Are the days all starting to merge into one? Then this is the blog post for you!
I saw a post on Peachy Speech’s Instagram account where she has set up a restaurant for her boys. She had given them colouring pages and a pot of crayons so they could pretend they were at Pizza Express. I thought it was such a great way to make a meal time more exciting and also a good way to make the weekend a little bit different to the rest of the week.
Photo: @peachy_speech
So I asked my very talented sister Liz Smith Illustration if she could design some menu templates and activity sheets so that we could set up our own restaurant. She has made 3 different sets which are available to download for free.
The first time we used them, I filled the menus in but this would be a great way to encourage children to do some writing.
On Saturday, we put a tablecloth on the tablet, picked a daffodil from the garden and lit some candles.
I set the table, putting menus out and activity sheets and jars of crayons for Sophie and Benji in their spaces.
I chose food that just needed putting into the oven and didn’t matter if everyone ordered different meals E.g. fish fingers, chicken nuggets, chips and potato waffles.
We wrote down everyone’s orders and then Craig cooked while I did the activity sheets with Sophie and Benji.
I tried to make it feel like we were at a restaurant by serving milkshake in milk bottles with colourful straws.
Just like at a restaurant, they needed entertaining and didn’t want to stay in their seats. But the joy of making your home into a restaurant meant it didn’t matter if they left the table to play with their toys while they waited for their food to arrive.
They insisted on bringing the high chair in from their play shed so that their babies could come to the restaurant too. We had to pretend we were going out for one of the baby’s birthday and all had to sing Happy Birthday.
My favourite part of the meal was the pudding! We tried to make it more of a treat than our midweek puddings.
It was lots of fun but I wish there was someone available to clear our plates and wash up! The next day we used one of the other templates and turned our dining into a Pancake House. We will definitely do it again this weekend.
If you would like to have a go at making your own restaurant you can download the menu and activity sheets below:
If you share any photos on social media, we would love to see them. Tag @miniwritersclub and @lizsmith.illustration
Anna