Run a Breakfast Café
Make paper breakfast foods and open a pretend café. Your child can take an order, find and customize the foods, record a longer order, and use the note while preparing it.
- 4 years
- Quick prep
- At home
- About 30 minutes
Developmental benefits
- Cognitive：Remembering an order, finding the matching foods, and checking a note when needed gives your child practice holding and retrieving information to complete a task.
- Language：Drawing foods or creating simple symbols to record an order gives your child a meaningful reason to represent and share information in print.
Preparation
What You’ll Need
- 1
Blank sticky notes, colored cardstock, and markers
Step 1
Make the Breakfast Foods
Invite your child to open a pretend breakfast café. Ask the “owner” to name favorite breakfast foods, then draw them on paper and cut them out to make the café’s menu items.
What to notice
- Draws different foods and cuts them out
Fine Motor - Uses a drawing to represent a real breakfast food
Writing
Tips
- The drawings and cutouts do not need to be exact. Help cut any complicated outlines.
- If your child cannot think of a food, recall today’s breakfast or look at foods and menu pictures for ideas.
Step 2
Take and Fill an Order
Play the customer and place an order. Ask the café owner to find each food. Add a request such as berries on the oatmeal or vegetables in the omelet, and let your child draw the topping onto the paper food. If the order is hard to remember, suggest writing it down.
What to notice
- Finds the ordered food and adds the requested ingredient
Cognitive Self-Regulation (Executive Functioning) - Pretends to take orders, prepare food, or welcome customers
Creativity
Tips
- Begin with one food and one request. Add two or three items after the game becomes familiar.
- Ask your child to repeat the order. If one item is missing, offer a prompt—“Besides the oatmeal, what else did I order?”—instead of giving the answer.
Step 3
Draw a Longer Order
Your child does not need to write words on the order slip. They can draw the foods and ingredients or use symbols they understand. Then help them follow the note to prepare each item and serve the completed order.
What to notice
- Uses drawings or simple symbols to record the ordered foods and ingredients Writing
- Uses the order slip to prepare the requested foods Cognitive Self-Regulation (Executive Functioning)
Tips
- If an item is missing, invite your child to check the order slip again before pointing it out.
- Say each part of the order slowly so your child has time to record it.
Better Parenting Content Team · Updated September 11, 2026