• Learning Words: restaurant, menu, waiter, waitress, dollars
• Learning Social Skills:
  “Please”, “May I?”, “Excuse me”,
  “Thank you”, “You’re welcome”
• Doing Things in Order (“Sequencing”):
  Eating in a restaurant. What are the steps?
• Learning Shapes: circle, square, triangle
• Learning to Count: 1 to 10
• Practicing with pencils, crayons, scissors

• Decide who will be the waiter (or waitress) and the birthday person. Take turns being each. If only one child is playing, let him (her) play the waiter (waitress) first.
• Set up a table and chairs – one chair for each child, parent or stuffed animal at the restaurant.
• Help children decorate pretend menus and place-mats with crayons. Ask them to “write” names of the foods on the menu (pretend writing).
• Help children use colored clay or Play Doh to make a pretend birthday cake; or just pretend.
• Get paper and pencil for the waiter or waitress to ”write” the orders (using pretend writing).

• Pretend Money.
• Shapes: Circle, Square, Triangle.
• Numbers chart.
• Faces: Happy, Sad, Angry.

• Table and chairs.
• Paper or plastic plates, cups, napkins, knives, forks, and spoons.
• Cloth or plastic place-mats, or place-mats children make with crayons.
• Real or pretend pots and pans.
• Pretend birthday cake (clay or Play Doh) or just pretend.
• Crayons or pencils, and old menus or paper to make menus and an order pad.

Tell the Story:
Pretend it’s a birthday. We’ll have a birthday party at a restaurant, a place where we can go to eat. Where would you like to go?

Play the Game: Pretend calling the restaurant to reserve a table.

1. The waiter (or waitress) sets the table. What shape is it? Ask the waiter to count how many place-mats, plates, cups, napkins, knives, forks and spoons are needed.
2. The birthday person and friend(s) arrive. The waiter (or waitress) greets them and hands them pretend menus. What colors and shapes are the menus?
3. The birthday person orders from the menu. The waiter (or waitress) says, "Thank you", or "I’m sorry, we don’t have that".
4. The waiter "writes" the birthday person’s order on the order pad (using pretend writing).
5. The waiter pretends to cook the food.
6. The waiter brings the food. The birthday person says, “Thank you”. The waiter says, “You’re welcome”. Ask children to name the pretend foods and their colors.
7. Then the waiter brings the pretend birthday cake with candles. Use the Numbers chart, and count the candles. Make a wish, cut the cake, and pretend to eat it. Ask your child to: “Show me a happy face.”
8. The waiter says, "Excuse me" and removes the dishes from the table.
9. The waiter brings the "bill" (pretend writing) and tells the birthday person how much she owes (1 to 10 dollars).
10. The birthday person pays the waiter with pretend dollars, counting each dollar out loud. The waiter says, “Thank you.” The birthday person says, “You’re welcome”.
11. The birthday person leaves the restaurant.

• Talk with children about good foods to eat. A child who eats healthful food does his/her best in school. A healthy daily diet includes milk, fruits and vegetables, whole grains (cereal, wheat breads), fish, chicken or lean meat and 8 glasses of water. Good snacks are raisins, sliced fruits or vegetables (like carrot sticks), or cold cereal.
• Now, play the game again with a different child as the birthday person and the waiter or waitress.