9 Screen-Free Activities to Do at Restaurants

Don’t beat yourself up if you occasionally used a tablet/phone/iPad to occupy your child on an outing. You are not a bad parent! It’s all about balance though. And advance planning. Advance planning helps us to have alternatives to digital devices available when our toddler needs a distraction.

Just like you would stock your pantry with nutritious snack options for when your toddler asks for their fifth snack by 9am, you need to stock your car, purse, or diaper bag with engaging screen-free activities.

Here is a list of our favorite screen-free activities to do at a restaurant:

1.       Color-Restaurants that provide coloring sheets and crayons are the best, but if you want to keep some handy then these are coloring books and crayons are great! Coloring at restaurants is more fun if a child can only use a special kind of marker or crayon at restaurants, but no where else.

2.       Play the Letter Game-Use silverware or straws to create letters. Then ask your child to write the letter on a piece of paper. Use straws to form the letters: A, E, F, H, I K, L, M, N, T, V, W, X and Z.

3.       Stickers-A pack of stickers can be used to decorate themselves or place a sticker on paper and create a scene around the sticker.

4.       Measure-Use sugar packets to measure the length and width of the table, silverware, or the menu. This is a great way to introduce measuring and practice counting.

5.       Take ‘N Play Games-These are the best! They are small, clean up nicely, and all the pieces are magnetic so it makes it easier to keep track of them. These are a few of our favorites: Go Fishing, Checkers, and Bingo.

6.       I-Spy-This is a great way to work on color recognition. Have one person choose the color of an object in sight. Everyone else tries to guess the correct object.

7.       Animal Game-This is a fun game similar to 20 questions. Someone thinks of an animal in their head while everyone else asks questions to try to guess the animal the “it” person was thinking of.

8.       Verbal Simon-This is a great game to build memory recall skills. You will ask your child to listen to you carefully as you say two colors, and then they will repeat the colors in the same order. (Ex. Red, Blue) After they repeat the colors to you, you will say the two colors from before and add a third color (Ex. Red, Blue, Yellow). Your child will repeat all three colors. If they get the colors correct, then add a fourth color (Ex. Red, Blue, Yellow, Green). The game continues until they make a mistake. This can be played using the names of shapes or animals too.

9.       Boogie Board-These boards are super cool! They are similar to magna doodle boards, but way smaller so they fit nicely in little hands. A great item to keep in your purse!

What are your favorite activities or games to play at restaurants? Email me your answer. If you need some ideas for screen-free activities to do on a car trip CLICK HERE.