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Pretend Restaurant in Kindergarten Classroom Lines Up With Play-Based Learning
May 22, 2018
Ms. Kathy Johnson’s kindergarten class created a play restaurant inside their Fox Meadow Elementary classroom in South Elgin, one that allowed them to practice some important skills and have a lot of fun, too.
In sync with the District's play-based curriculum, the space allows Ms. Johnson's students to bridge their outside knowledge with things like phonetic spelling, teamwork, sharing, and community service. Ms. Johnson asked her students what they would like to create, and the students almost unanimously decided on creating a McDonald’s.
“What child of every economic background (hasn’t) been to a McDonald’s?” Ms. Johnson said. “They can really generalize that knowledge all the way through every setting ... they can relate to it.”
The students created many materials themselves, including an overall menu, smaller handout menus, a drive-thru, and more. Ms. Johnson also took some found materials -- rinsed McDonald’s cups, french fry containers, Happy Meal boxes -- and added them to the collection of pre-existing classroom kitchen toys. Then the students took turns fulfilling different restaurant roles such as customer, employee, fry cook, and even manager.