Table Setting = Math

On the day of our Thanksgiving feast I changed part of our dramatic play area from a grocery store into a family table, with place settings, decorations, and some food.  We were focusing a large part of our day in getting ready for  the feast and how it would go, that I really wanted the kids to have an opportunity to play with the idea of setting up and having a feast before it actually happened.

But first in large group we talked about setting a table.  This was more of a math exercise to me rather than a lesson in etiquette(although two birds with one stone is always nice).  The nice things with place settings and math is the shapes and a perfect opportunity to draw a diagram, and follow your "plan" like a map.  I did not discuss whether the fork goes on the right or the left.  I just wanted the fork and napkin together (with the fork under the napkin) and the spoon and cup together (with teh cup over the spoon)

Each child drew a diagram of how your place setting should look.  Later that day the children were going to set our real table for our real feast and they knew they were going to use their diagrams like maps to help remind them of how to do it.

Here was our family table dramatic play set up:






They loved setting and re-setting the table.