Play Restaurant together with your child and practice using strategies, or plans, to remember customers’ orders!
Table and chairs
2-3 stuffed animals or dolls
Pretend food, or blocks to represent food
Crayons or markers
Set up a pretend restaurant area by placing 2-3 stuffed animals (or dolls) in chairs at a table. The stuffed animals are the customers.
Together, place the pretend food (or blocks) on the other side of the room to make your pretend kitchen.
Take turns playing different roles in the restaurant! One person says the food order for each stuffed animal, and the other person is the waiter. It’s the waiter’s job to remember each customer’s order, prepare it in the kitchen, and serve it to the customers.
Try using a strategy, or plan, to help remember the orders. You might repeat the foods over and over again as you walk from the table to the kitchen area. Or, you can draw a quick picture of each food as the customer orders it, and take the pictures with you to the kitchen area.
Take turns pretending to be the waiter. Talk together about the strategies you used to help remember the food the customers ordered. Can you think of new strategies together (e.g., making up rhymes, etc.)?
3 to 5
Self-Regulation, Executive Function
Talk About It
Talk together about some challenges you have when trying to remember things. For example, if too much time goes by you could forget what you’re trying to remember. Or, if you become distracted by something such as a friend asking you a question, you might think about that instead of what you were trying to remember. Talk about how strategies like repeating things out loud or making a picture list can help you remember things even when there are distractions.
Take It Further
Working memory allows us to hold information in our minds and “work with it.” It helps us do things like follow directions and remember rules. Help your child practice using her working memory by asking her to help you remember things. For example, you might ask her to remember a few of the items you need from the grocery store such as milk, eggs, and bread. She could also help remember the different stops you need to make while running errands like going to the bank, library, or post office. Talk together about strategies you could use to remember these things.