Planning for the Early Years: The Local Community by Lindon Jennie;

Author:Lindon, Jennie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1177294
Publisher: Andrews UK Ltd.
Published: 2013-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Learning about eating out in the local community

You can provide young children with the experience of different kinds of food - for snack, lunch or teatime. Young boys and girls also benefit from learning how to prepare simple meals and basic cooking skills. A further valuable experience can be for children to eat out in a local café. Plan an outing to somewhere in walking distance and take a small number of children. If you work in group provision, you can steadily take out all the children over time - not necessarily to the same place. This outing is probably for over threes, although you may have some older twos who will manage.

What do you need to do beforehand?

Check out local places where the menu has items that will be suitable for you and the children for a light lunch, snack or teatime treat. Review whether children have any family preferences over diet, or food allergies, that mean you need to double-check items on the menu of your first choice.

You would not necessarily tell the café you are coming and certainly not ask, as if they are doing you a favour to serve adults with young children. However, if the best place is often busy, it could be a wise idea to reserve a table for your small group this afternoon. The idea of having your own table reserved for you is likely to be a novelty to young children.

You may have a fund for small purchases. Perhaps families could contribute a small sum to the snack or afternoon tea. Maybe a parent or grandparent can be invited to join the outing.

Have you considered yet an effective way to show who has left the nursery to go out on a trip? For example, Mary Paterson Nursery School has a special “Who is out?” board on which children and adults put their photo on leaving and then, when they return, put the photos back on the main board for who is in nursery today.

Perhaps your local delicatessen is mostly used for buy and take away, but they also offer a lunchtime menu to eat there. Perhaps the Turkish bakery is known across your town as the place to get wonderful pastries and they have placed a few tables on their section of the pavement. You might choose the café or small restaurant because they have a local speciality on their menu. Of course, you do not want to break the budget, but the food can be economical, maybe Cornish pasties or Staffordshire oatcakes.

Some young children have been nowhere other than fast food chains. No offence to this option; it is useful sometimes. However, it is valuable to extend their experience to places where customers are served at the table and are provided with plates, glasses and cutlery appropriate to the meal.

An opportunity to learn about a real café or restaurant

The language and intellectual development of two-year-olds should have progressed to the point where they are able to play around with their knowledge of how the world works.

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