This story is about an all night cafe for the animals of the neighborhood. Children will delight in learning all that goes into what makes this restaurant run.

Materials

• Ingredients used for a cooking project or to make your favorite play dough.
• Several restaurant bags or boxes that would be familiar to the children.
• Magazines
• Poster Board
• Cookbooks with illustrations
• Pictures of foods on index cards
• Guest Checks
• Placemats

Vocabulary

• Magic (it means something happens which you can not explain, a mystery)
• Spicing (To add flavor to food to make it taste better)
• Café (a place where food and drinks are sold, like a restaurant)

Before Reading the Story

Bring several food bags (McDonald’s, Chick-Fil-A, Bojangles) and a pizza box. Ask the children if they know where these come from.

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; recognize a word as a unit of print, or awareness that letters are grouped to form words, and that words are separated by spaces.  

Hold up one of the bags and ask the children to clap their hands if they have eaten there. Hold up the next bag and ask them to put their hands on their head.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multi-step directions.

Count with the children each time to see how many children have visited each restraint.

Mathematics/Numbers & Operations; demonstrates increasing interest and awareness of numbers and counting as a means for solving problems and determining quantity.

After a short discussion on where the children have eaten and like to eat, hold up the book cover and tell them that the story today is called Animal Café.

Reading the Story

Ask questions along the way. What do you think the magic is? Why do you think Casey the cat is in the kitchen, slicing, dicing, and spicing? When the guests start arriving say to the children, “Oh, Casey and Sedgewick are opening up a restaurant or café!”

Literacy/Book KNowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books and poetry.

After Reading the Story

With the children list all the things that Casey and Sedgewick had to do to prepare the café for the animals (slicing,dicing,and spicing, decorating, setting the tables, writing the menu, greeting, serving, taking the money and cleaning up).

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Music and Movement

Turn this into a song by making up verses to the tune of Fere Jaqua. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI0abuwq31g

At the café, at the café,                               At the café, at the café,

There’s a chef, there’s a chef                   There’s a menu, there’s a menu

He chops and he dices,                             It tells us all the good foods

He cooks and he spices                            We can order

At the café, at the café.                               At the café, at the café.

Waitress takes our order                          The cleaner scrubs the café

Brings the yummy food                            Keeps it safe and clean

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Discovery

This would be a great day to do a cooking project with your children in small group. Dice cheese, slice apples, and spice the apples with cinnamon for an easy snack. Or make a batch of play dough with the children and talk about what happens when you mix the ingredients.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe other processes and relationships.  AND Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Art

Give the children magazines to cut out food pictures and glue them to a piece of poster board.  This can later be hung in the dramatic center as a wall menu for restaurant play.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer . 

Sand and Water

Put out dampened sand and several dishes. Let the children pretend to make sand food.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Library and Writing

Add several cookbooks that have illustrations.

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; develops growing understanding of the different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus.

Cut out pictures of food ahead of time and glue them to index cards. Label the foods. Ask the children if they can help put them onto your word wall.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; increases in ability to notice the beginning letters of familiar words. 

Dramatic Play

Turn your dramatic play area into a restaurant for an extended period of time. Have the children help organize the dishes by putting all the like kinds together

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; begins to be able to determine if two shapes are the same size and shape.

 Make copies of the placemat and cover them with contact paper. Show the children how to set the table/s by placing the like dishes over the placemat cutouts. As they are setting the table/s talk to them about how the fork goes on the left and the cup goes above the plate.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize , duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Add any menus and food containers that you have collected to the center.  Encourage the children to participate in a variety of roles related to the kitchen and as a guest.  Show the children how to use the guest check to pretend to write down their order.  Observe the children as they play, are they able to  switch and share roles?  Are they able to use restaurant related words (menu, waitress, cook, chef, order)?

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games and in using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Math and Manipulatives

Put out all your food related puzzles

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes, stringing beads, and using scissors.

 Outdoor Play

Play a bounce and catch game.  Have several children stand in a circle.  Bounce the ball to a child and name a food.  The child must catch the bounced ball, name a food and bounce the ball to another.  Continue naming foods.  For older children, make food categories.  Bounce and name food s that you keep in the refrigerator, foods that you might eat for breakfast, favorite foods, etc.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; demonstrates increasing abilities to coordinate movements in throwing, catching, kicking, bouncing balls, and using the swing and slide.  AND Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on a single attribute.

 Transitions

Put any play foods that you might have into a pillow case or bag that the children can not see through.  Let them take turns pulling out a food item and then naming it.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games and in using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Resources