![]() ![]() Let your child feel the different surfaces of the coins and their sizes and edges. ![]() “Start by feeling and identifying the coins,” she says. Pelangka advises we use the real thing and not fake money - it’s best to be consistent and real. It’s helpful for kids to get a tactile sense of money, so Dr. Pelangka reminds us they will still need to know how to identify and count money! If they’re ready for it, you may want to challenge them by learning about tipping: work with them to decide what percentage to tip you (yes!) and figuring out how much that will add to the total!Ībove all, be sure to make this as fun and light as possible! Cacciato reminds us that it’s easy for adults to forget the basic steps of ordering, so she encourages us to think through every step of the process and explicitly teach it to our kids.Įven though many of us rarely carry cash and tend to use a debit or credit card for everything, we still need to know how much an item costs to be sure we’ve been charged correctly, and if we return something, to make sure we receive the same amount of money back - so even if our kids may eventually use a debit card more often than cash, Dr. You can also play different roles as the customer and the cashier, and help them practice adding up the cost of the items they’d like to order and pay the cashier using real money. Put all the skills together by changing roles: have your child take your order. This is a great activity for practicing using an AAC device as well. Practice scanning the headings for the type of food being offered, choosing what they would like, and how to politely ask for it when it’s their turn to ask the wait staff (you) for what they want. To work on good communication practices as well as executive functioning skills, help them read the menu. Tier 3: Add the products together, find the total, then dollar up.īeing at a restaurant and ordering appropriately:.Tier 2: Read the menu and have your child dollar up on their own.Tier 1: Identify the next dollar (counting one up, or “dollar up”).Have them pick an item they want from the menu and pair it with a basic price depending on their level: Numbers and 1:1 correspondence: Role-play waiting on your child by asking them what they’d like to order. ![]() To make each skill applicable to children’s individual needs, she breaks it down into three skill types: Use this round-up worksheet to help your child figure out how to round up the amount of an item they would like to order to the nearest dollar ("dollar up").Ĭacciato tells us that when she works with kids on this activity it’s helpful - and fun - to make it relevant by pretending to visit a favorite restaurant. In short, restaurants offer the opportunity to work on all kinds of life skills - so why not take advantage of a period in which we can’t actually visit one by creating the restaurant experience at home? Sarah Cacciato, a special education teacher and educational therapist at L&S Special Education Consulting and Services, provided an activity called The Room Diner to help our kids learn to order food from a restaurant, take an order, and pay for it themselves.įirst, print these order slips and The Room Diner menu to use for the activity. After all, so many skills go into the activity of going to, and enjoying, a restaurant - practicing good communication, making choices, sitting still, ordering food, learning about what things cost and how to pay for them, not to mention budgeting. While eating in a restaurant may be our idea of a good time, our kids may need a little more practice at it. Don't miss parts two and three in the series on getting ready for the day and building disability and medical self-advocacy. In this first part of our Functional Life Skills series, let’s learn about money, ordering, budgeting, communication, and more by setting up and enjoying a pretend restaurant. ![]()
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