Open a Family Restaurant
The little restaurant is open! Make a menu, record each order with pictures or symbols, and help the chef deliver every dish to the right customer.
- 4½ years
- Quick prep
- At home
- About 30 minutes
Developmental benefits
- Language：Marking who ordered each dish gives your child a meaningful reason to record information with drawings, letters, names, or invented symbols and builds interest in writing.
- Cognitive：Making a menu and adding details to the restaurant encourages your child to develop an imagined setting and sustain a role-play story.
Preparation
What You’ll Need
- 1
Pretend kitchen toys, paper, and a pencil
Step 1
Open the Restaurant
When your child opens a pretend restaurant and invites you to order, become a curious customer. Ask, “What are you serving today? Do you have a menu?” Realizing that customers need a menu gives your child a reason to make one.
What to notice
- Arranges pretend food and invites family members to order
Creativity - Begins making a menu after you ask, “Do you have a menu?”
Attending and Understanding
Tips
- Follow the story your child is creating and introduce a reason to write when it helps solve a real problem in the game.
Step 2
Mark Mom’s Order
Once the menu is ready, place an order. If your child cannot remember every dish, first let them think of a solution. If they need an idea, suggest making a small mark beside each dish or adding the customer’s name. Then see whether the record helps them deliver the order correctly.
What to notice
- Uses drawings, marks, or words to record what a customer ordered
Writing - Hands a writing task to a parent and asks for help
Relationships with Adults
Tips
- If your child wants to write a name but does not know how, write it once and let them trace over it.
- Tracing the letters you write gives your child practice coordinating wrist and finger movements for later independent writing.
Step 3
Record More Orders
As more customers arrive, writing every name may feel slow. Suggest a recognizable picture, a letter or initial, or an invented symbol. Let your child choose how to record each person, then use the marks to serve the dishes.
What to notice
- Invents spellings or other marks beside dishes on the menu Writing
- Uses the recorded marks to serve each customer’s order
Cognitive Self-Regulation (Executive Functioning)
Tips
- When your child follows a mark to serve the food, play along: “Grandma—oh! So this mark means me!”
- Do not decide the symbol for your child. Ask, “What mark would help you recognize Dad right away?”
- The mark does not need to make sense to you. If your child can explain whom it represents and use it to deliver the right dish, it works as a record.
Better Parenting Content Team · Updated September 11, 2026