She helped go through recipe books to choose foods she wanted, helped create shopping lists and so the shopping, helped write up and type/print out and decorate actual menus, decorated the house and dining area and table, made paper butterflies and stamped bees and drew flowers. Was a week or two of activities together getting it all sorted. She loved it (and so did I).

In the 6 mths since then she has asked for dinner to be ‘like the Fairy Butterfly Garden Cafe” many times and so have done a similar thing on a smaller scale (and minus the cake and presents) but the menu selection parts and shopping, cooking, room decor, setting the table (table cloth and placemats and candles and flowers from the garden ‘like a real restaurant mummy’) all that stuff. Been a great exercise in eating different foods and manners/etiquette etc (“this is how you would eat/behave in a REAL resnt”, “we wouldnt do that in a REAL resnt would we…” minimised those small behaviours that sometimes crop up around dinner time such as complaining about the TV having to go off before dinner or a toy put away or hands washed or saying something was ‘yucky’ or making faces about a meal etc). Highly recommend it.

Threading – colour combos of fruit.
Kids love threading why not get them to put fruit onto sticks. watermelon, pineapple, rockmelon strawberry. Over and over again. Fun to serve at playgroup, or to put out cut up bits as an activity for kids to do at playgroup. You have a chance to talk about juicy foods, sour foods, crunchy foods, messy, clean, sice, dice, sharp, what ever is age appropriate.

Or for the older ones, Kebabs mushroom, pineapple red and green capsicums, cherry tomato and a bit of meat (never let little kids work with raw meat!!!)

We have all been there and done that at school surely!!! macaroni, spaghetti, spirals, shells, etc etc there are so many to choose. Again the language is endless, hard, soft, what happens if we leave some in this water over here while we do the art (come back at the end it will be slimy) Add heat it will go soft (cooked) While that is going on a bit of PVA, boxes, paper, toilet rolls, cover in patterns, designs, etc even a page out of a colering in book is fun if the picture is big enough. Once the glue is dry you have a painting activity for the next day.

This was a fav at special ed. baked beans and spag patterns.

We buy so many expensive craft but how about a small can or beans and spaghetti. They are wonderful for babies and toddlers as if they eat it Oh well!! on a clean baking tray put out a bit of baking paper to make it easier to see the patterns. Kids can pattern. Bean bean spaghetti 112 battern or 1212 pattern etc you can make shapes with spaghetting a bit like rubber band art triangles, squares, circles. You can make faces. Well you get the idea. The language development opportunities are endless. squish, extend, straight, curly, spiral, dot, cold, wet,