Fun reading game for kids

Here’s a fun game to play with kids and grandkids once they learn to read. There are tons of ways to modify it according to your situation.

The basics of the reading game

This reading game has a restaurant theme. You are the waiter/waitress. The child gets to read a menu you create and visit your “restaurant” for a snack or lunch. You have chosen the menu items, helping them to make healthy food choices.

The child gets ownership over choosing their snack, has their reading skills reinforced, and gets to feel special by being waited on as a “customer.”

It’s an activity that gets kids the snack or lunch they’d have anyway while you all get in some role-playing and the kids get in some reading practice. By only listing foods you’d like them to eat on the menu, they’ll be making healthy snack choices.

It also helps to keep them busy while you’re making the food and engages them in the process.

Theme of your restaurant

The first restaurant I ran was called The Tinkerbell Café. I named it that because I had this placemat from Amazon with Tinkerbell on it.

My current café is called The Give a Hoot Café because I use this well-worn placemat.

I’m sure you’re seeing my thinking here. Name your café something that will resonate with or tickle your customers. Maybe you’ll choose the name of their favorite toy or a special memory.

They will appreciate it and want to come back time and again.

Accessories for your restaurant

These are things I use at my play café:

• Waitress pad or small notebook and pen. Wear an apron if you like, and keep your notepad in the pocket! Make a name tag if you want!
• Placement with theme
• Tableware and napkin
• Handmade menu with items
• Special notes/specials of the day

Activities you can incorporate into the experience

My special note card includes the special of the day (like if I’ve just made cookies or have a special leftover I know they’ll love).

The note card also invites them to decorate their menu while I am making their food. Instead of a placemat, you can use a piece of brown paper, as some restaurants do. That way, you don’t have to rewrite the menu every time and could even laminate it or put it into a plastic folder.

If there is something you might need help preparing or special food preparation or kitchen skills you’d like your child to learn, you can add a special “experience” to the card of specials.

This might be something like dipping strawberries or oranges in chocolate that you melt, helping to cut their sandwiches into fun shapes using cookie cutters of their choice, adding their own pita pizza toppings, or inviting them to be your sous chef (and teaching them that new word and how to spell it).

You can help them make their own no-churn ice cream or toss fruit or granola into yogurt.

The Give a Hoot café menu

Here’s what’s on my menu. It’s so easy to change this up depending on the child’s preferences, food that’s in season, what’s in your refrigerator, how long you want to spend making food, and what you’d like to encourage your child to eat or practice reading.

I always include drinks, snacks, and lunch choices.

This is my most recent menu, decorated by my youngest granddaughter. I probably should have taken a picture before she decorated it…

I decided to ask each customer if there was something they’d like to see on the menu in the future. This diner chose scrambled eggs—so, of course, that will go on the menu. And since I raise chickens, I may add “collect your own egg” as a dining experience!

Typical restaurant experience for your child

1. Welcome the child to my café and thank them for coming.
2. Put the placemat in front of them.
3. Present them with the menu and give them the card of specials.
4. Point out the drinks. Take their drink order.
5. Tell them you’ll come back to take their order. Help them to read any items they might have trouble with.
6. Take their order using your waitress pad. Always act like a waitress, asking things like, “Would you like ketchup with that?” “Would you like your sandwich in a wrap or bread?” “Would you like pickles with that?” and other things a waitress would ask.
7. Give them stickers, markers, glue on gems, etc., so they can decorate the menu (or brown paper if you’re using that) while you prepare the food.
8. Deliver food and give them time to eat.
9. Check back in to see if they need anything like condiments or more drinks.
10. Tell them food is free for the day. All they need to do is to come back again!

Tell me how you play this game!

My kids and grandkids have all loved playing this game.

It was borne out of the need to keep several kids I was babysitting engaged while I was making lunch for them. The oldest one could read, so she acted like the “parent” at the table, guiding the younger ones to make their choices and helping to keep them busy while I was making the food.

Leave a comment below and tell me if you’ve played this, what modifications you made, and whether you play other learning games with your new readers.