Today I am excited to share about our Restaurant Review Writing Project, round two!

You may remember an earlier post this year, when I detailed our homeschool writing experiment. The Restaurant Review has now been updated and improved!

During the 2025-2026 school year, my kids and I tried something new for creative writing. I hadn’t found a curriculum I really loved, so I started piecemealing my own ideas with resources online, and made my own! We ended up completing 21 different creative writing projects–most of which were essays–and at the end of the year, my kids had beautiful writing portfolios that we were all very proud of!

Creative Writing in Homeschool

With that said, our homeschool creative writing journey has been a bit of a whirlwind. Last year, as I chose different creative writing projects, it was a bit like drinking from a fire hose. I worked hard to keep up with my own ambitions (ha!) to continue fun writing projects all year. We ended up doing a new writing project about every 1.5 weeks or so, which was great!

Here is how I used last year’s work, to plan for this year:

• I logged each project into a Google Sheet, including dates, resources used, and notes of how things went
• I set up a new Google Sheet for this year, to mentally map out my goals and keep us on track (with flexibility included)–you can read more about how this planning helps me immensely, here
• Made some adjustments to last year’s writing projects, to be unique and spark creativity this year

Restaurant Review Project for Kids

Ok, so how does this all work?!

First: we brainstorm! My kids and I talk about our favorite restaurants, and what we like about them. I look ahead to the Restaurant Review form itself, and make sure they understand terms like “service, wait time, adjectives to describe food, and value.” (My kindergartener, Beau, uses this edited form for PK-Kinder-1st grade). Then, we do a mock review of sorts! We walk through the Restaurant Review orally for a restaurant we know well. This gets their brains going, and engages them for the actual outing. I love using the Post-It chart paper and Sharpie chart markers for these brainstorm sessions. Since the chart paper is a giant post-it, I can leave it on the pad, or hang it up in our school room for future reference.

Then: We head to the restaurant of our choice! You can decide whether you want to bring the Restaurant Review form along with you on a clipboard, or just take pictures while you’re there and complete the form at home, later. (Pictures are nice for them to recall details later–like how their food looked, what color the booth was, and to recall information in general). At the restaurant, you can comment on what you notice, and ask them questions! Get them to think about concepts on the form, so that they can form inferences and opinions about the restaurant.

Last: We complete the Restaurant Review. (Beau completed the Kindergarten version, and Emmaline & Graham completed the 2nd-5th grade version!) I like to ask them a lot of questions while they work, and also prompt for detail. For example: a standard sentence they may write is “I ate fries, a chicken sandwich, and lemonade.” I will push Emmaline & Graham for more detail, and they will think of awesome imagery like “I munched on steamy waffle fries,” or “I had to ask for more tangy Chick-Fil-A sauce.” Even Beau likes to think of fun adjectives!

Extend the Restaurant Review into an essay

Last year, when Graham & Emmaline were in 4th and 2nd grades, I extended the restaurant review into an essay! (With Emmaline, I did plenty of scaffolding, and also typed the final version for her once she corrected basic spelling & grammar errors).

You can choose to do this, or skip it. It really depends on your kids! If you want to try extending it into an essay, the Restaurant Review comes with ideas to help your kids, as well as the essay template itself.

Last year, as well as this year, I really wanted to stay consistent with my older two and have them write essays frequently. I knew it was in their zone of proximal development, and I wanted them to get used to the structure of a basic 5-paragraph essay. I think it really paid off!

In our essays, we focus a lot on providing specific detail. This makes writing more enjoyable to read, and pushes the kids to use all five senses to consider their experiences! (More on five senses in writing, here).

Compare & Contrast Restaurants

One neat idea you could explore with your kids is comparing and contrasting different restaurants. That is what I plan to do with my kids, in a few weeks!

For our first restaurant review this fall, we visited a local taco truck. We heard rave reviews about the taco truck, but many things about it are significantly different than a sit-down-restaurant! For the second restaurant, we will visit a sit-down place with similar cuisine, but a different atmosphere. I think it will be really fun to compare the two, and see what environment my kids prefer, and why!

Here are a few of their notes from the food truck. On the left is the Restaurant Review; on the right is their rough draft of the Restaurant Review Essay:

I am looking forward to bringing them to a sit-down restaurant, with similar cuisine, in a few weeks. I felt like our experiences doing a Compare/Contrast Essay last year were great, so I plan to try them again this year! I love using these templates from Teachers Pay Teachers, to help my kids format those compare/contrast essays.

Pivoting in Homeschool

When we started fresh just a few short weeks ago, I was really excited about this Restaurant Review Project. We had just finished our Summer Sensory essay, the week before. I was excited to jump into restaurant reviews!

But…life with kids is not always predictable.

I was all pumped up to try a taco truck near our house. A friend of ours had told us that they were authentic, and the best tacos she had ever tasted! I figured it would be a unique experience for me and the kids–a bit different than the sit-down restaurant we used for our restaurant reviews last year.

We got there, and ordered our food. My kids noticed that the prices weren’t listed (which we didn’t love), the menu was in Spanish (which we DID love, as Spanish-speakers!) and that the setup “wasn’t like Chipotle” — my son Graham’s favorite restaurant. He was expecting to watch them make his burrito, and choose all of the ingredients.

We got our steaming hot burrito, set of chicken tacos, and glass-bottle Cokes, and walked over to our car to eat. (My plan was to split a few things, just to get a little flavor, and the bill was still $40!!!) My son took one look at the burrito and proclaimed he wouldn’t be eating it, because “look at all this lettuce!” I took a deep breath (ha!) and asked him to please just eat it, it was expensive and this is a special outing.

That said–not only was there lettuce in the burrito (outrage!) the chicken tacos were also too spicy, and had onions in them (again, the outrage :)) I sat there in dismay, wondering whether I had been a bit too optimistic to try a brand-new restaurant with my often-picky eaters.

I was discouraged–but tried to stay upbeat. I explained that we had paid for the food, and that we would all be at least trying all of the items. It’s important to try new things, it’s important to not waste food, and, not every food you eat is always going to be your absolute favorite!

They understood, and were better sports about it. We took most of it home as leftovers, and my husband and I ended up eating most of it (and it was delicious!) But, my kids decided that particular taco truck was not their favorite cuisine.

I was reflecting afterward on how much patience, humility, and grace we have to have in homeschooling–both for ourselves, and for our kids. Things frequently do not pan out the way I had planned, no matter how much planning I do! And that is life sometimes. We can still glean moments of learning, even just in how we respond to those situations. I wasn’t thrilled that my kids weren’t beaming with joy, scarfing down this new treat and thanking me for taking them. But, I tried to take it in stride, and make a mental note for next time.

Expanding Writing in Homeschool

To sum it up: I enjoy adjusting our writing projects from year to year. Maybe you do the same!

From last year to this year, I changed our Restaurant Review Writing project in two ways:

First: I extended it into a compare/contrast essay project.

Second, I wrote a Design Your Own Restaurant project to work in tandem with this one!

I wanted to extend the “restaurant theme” a bit longer, and also include my kindergartener Beau, even more. So I put my ideas to work and designed a really fun project! I cannot wait for you to see the results. Stay tuned next week to get a peek at their amazing ideas. I know your kids will have them, too!

With love,

Cait