When I was doing some creative writing planning this summer, I was brainstorming for our upcoming Restaurant Review Writing Project.

I wanted to expand the project, and give my kids some creative freedom…thus, the Design Your Own Restaurant Project was born!

Design Your Own Restaurant

My four kids span the ages of 2 to 10. This year I’ve got a toddler, a kindergartener, a 3rd grader and a 5th grader. So, I am constantly trying to think of ways to scaffold our learning to include them, while providing the right about of rigor for their level (more on scaffolding, here).

My middle two are my biggest creators, my strongest artists. I knew they would enjoy the ingenuity of designing their own restaurant.

To set the scene, create context, and gage background knowledge, I did a little prep work with them, beforehand! I wanted to talk about a restaurant they already knew, so that we could go over some of the key vocabulary within the Restaurant Design Project, such as:

• Motto or tagline
• Mascot
• Specialty, or things a restaurant is known for
• What types of foods and drinks are served
• Other things that make the restaurant unique

The 3-page project includes more elements than this, but I wanted to start with basics.

Once we analyzed a restaurant that was familiar to the kids, they started to catch on to some of the concepts we were discussing.

Next, we moved on to the logo analysis.

Logo Analysis in Homeschool

The General Mills and Snapchat logos were ones they were unfamiliar with (on purpose), and we wondered if we could guess their meaning or company purpose just by the logo! They couldn’t. But for Snapchat, the ghost part actually makes sense–which I explained to them later!

Logos and branding are fascinating parts of marketing! Even though my kids are still young, I love talking about more advanced concepts with them. I never want to underestimate them! Kids will often surprise you with what they understand.

During this project, we had a lot of opportunities to talk about marketing, branding, visual communication, color palette, and what images can communicate.

Teaching Tools for Graphic Design

As I taught my kids about various concepts of design, and we talked through what makes restaurant unique, we were covering a lot of ground. I wanted to set the scene for them, before they started working on the Restaurant Design project itself!

We ended up spending a lot of time talking about logos, and branding.

We loved checking out this video from Allan Peters on Instagram. I first came across his content a few weeks ago, and once I saw a few, I ran to show the kids!

Allan explains concepts of design in a simple and fascinating way. He has done a lot of work for top brands, including Target, Gatorade, and HGTV. Our favorite videos are of him taking old famous brands, and sharing how he would improve their logos.

We also liked looking through this article, by Canva, about what makes a great logo. This article also described what to keep in mind, including a really neat color chart depicting what certain colors communicate!

After talking about logos for a few days, we realized that we kept noticing them while out driving! Each exit we would pass, we noticed various restaurants and other company logos, and talked about. I love when learning extends to real life!

Restaurant Design Project: Original Designs

Lastly, here is a bit of a peek of some of the designs the kids came up with!

Graham (5th): did a burrito truck, because his current obsession is Chipotle! His logo was the head of a chicken, with flames as the chicken’s comb being a flame.

Emmaline (3rd) invented a fruit bowl called “Michy Bowl,” and based her cafe on various fruit concoctions. See her cute logo below!

Beau (kindergarten) did a Minecraft-themed restaurant, where you sit on Minecraft cube stools, eat off Enderman plates, and eat a special cookie crunch ice cream.

Because my kids are at three different levels, I scaffolded this project to honor that. For example–Graham (5th) and Emmaline (3rd) were capable of writing their own responses independently, occasionally asking for question prompts and clarification. Beau is in kindergarten, so he wrote and draw some of his project, and dictated to me what to write in other sections.

I absolutely loved how much creativity and ingenuity that was sparked by this project! If you want a preview, you can check out both this project, and a Company Logo project, here:

• Design Your Own Restaurant Project
• Restaurant Review Essay Project for 2nd-5th
• Restaurant Review Project for PK-K-1st
• Company Logo project

Happy learning!

With love,

Cait