Name of Activity: Plan Menu

Originating Idea: I wanted to create a menu like a restaurant in our classroom for children to take
their own orders on what they wanted to do.

Curriculum Area
Highlight 1:
Approaches to learning
Social and emotional development
Physical development and health
Language, literacy, and communication
Mathematics
Creative arts
Science and technology
Social studies

KDIs
2. Planning: Children make plans and follow through on their intentions.
Materials:
 Paper menus with pictures

Appropriate Age group: 3 to 5 years old

Beginning of Activity:
During our transition time I will bring out my premade menu papers they display different areas of the
classroom that will be open during choice time. “Today for choice time, we are going to plan our first play
activity with the help of a menu! Menus are often used at restaurants to pick what you want to eat. We have
special menus today that show different areas in the classroom that will be open during choice time.” I will pass
out menus to every student to look through. “Come to me when you’ve made your decision on what area you’d
like to play in for choice time today and you will use the menu to show me the area you have ordered. After you
come to me with your menu and order, you can go play.” Each student takes their turn coming up to me with
their menu and ordering the area they would like to play in. They will return the menu to me and transition into
choice time.

Middle of Activity
The children will only need to show me the area they’ve picked using their menus. They can either
point to the area, say the area, or pretend play along with the restaurant theming and explain their
order to me.

Early: Children that are struggling to identify areas within the classroom using the menu can be assisted by a
teacher who will point out each of the areas for them and explain what is available in each one.
Middle: They should be able to use the menu on their own and come up to the teacher with their order by
pointing to the area on the menu or verbally saying where they plan to go.
Later: They will be challenged to follow the pretend play around the menu and formally order using their menu
and giving a reason why they’ve chosen the area they’ve ordered.

End of Activity:
“We all used the plan menu to plan where we wanted to go during choice time for today. After starting the
choice time in the area you’ve ordered, you will be able to switch areas at any time and are not limited to just
the area you planned. Using the plan menus helped us to transition in a new way into our choice time for today
by planning ahead. I’m going to add our plan menus into the kitchen area for you to pretend play with.”
Follow-up Ideas (2)
We can take inspiration from the plan menus and have students create their own menus based off of food they
like, the classroom, or any topic they can think of.
We can use the plan menus in other aspects of the classroom such as picking the snack they want to eat
during snack time.