Who’s coming to Dinner Instructions
Warm up activity:
Ask your child or young person to think about what their favourite meal is, without telling you. You do the same. If you could have any meal in the entire world, what would it be?
Take a circle of paper each and draw your meal on it without showing each other.
Once you have finished drawing your meal, play a game of guessing each other’s meal. Maybe you are allowed to give clues, or maybe you are allowed to ask three questions with a YES/NO answer.
Once you have guessed each other’s meals, explore why you both like them so much. When did you first taste that meal? Who made it? When was the last time you had that meal?
Explain that we are going to create a dinner or tea party where this meal is going to be on the table and the child or young person can invite all the people who are important to them in their life. But first, we need to make a table for the meal to go on!
Table building (you can also watch a video here)
1. Take a piece of A4 card and fold it in half lengthways then cut down the fold so that you have two rectangles.
2. Take one of the rectangles and fold it in half again lengthways. Then fold each corner into the middle fold line. Repeat with the other rectangle.
3. Insert one of the shapes into the other so that you get a ribbon-like edge at each end.
4. Fold each ribbon edge towards the middle to create table legs and your table!
Chair-making (you can also watch a video here)
1. Take a sheet of origami paper (or create a square piece of paper approximately 15cm by 15 cm).
2. Ask your child or young person to think about the person they would like to invite to sit on this chair and write down words to describe them on one side and why they would like to invite them.
3. Now to turn your paper into a chair! Fold the square in half then open up the square again and fold each outer edge into the middle to create a rectangle.
4. Open up one flap so you have three column folds and then fold this in half lengthways.
5. With the folded edge at the top, fold each corner into the fold on each side.
6. Open up the fold to create a house-like image. Repeat on the other side.
7. Take the square flap in the inside of the structure and fold upwards and press the crease firmly.
8. Fold each outside into the middle and press firmly.
9. Open out both sides and fold the square flap down to create your chair! Now you need someone to sit on it!
Pipe-cleaner people! (You can also watch a video here)
You can create your own way of making your guests but here is one way you can do this
1. Take two pipe cleaners and fold them in half in the middle. Twist a loop in the middle to create a head.
2. Open up the arms, and create a twist half way down the body to create the legs. Fold the arms in half and twist around each other to create hands, bend the legs to create knees and feet.
3. You can then use other colours of pipe cleaner to create clothes, hair and accessories before placing your pipe cleaner person on their chair!
Extra info:
You can create as many chairs and people as you like! You could even create more tables if you wish and open your own restaurant!
You could also create a playlist of guests’ favourite songs or think about jokes they would like.
Maybe you could follow the activity by preparing your favourite meals together. Pull up a chair and enjoy!