Teaching table manners to your young children may seem daunting. But with a little help from the Let’s Eat Together Mealtime Activity Placemat, your young child will not only learn important table manners, but they will have fun too.

Studies have shown that eating dinner as a family unit is a great time to bond and help your child consume more fruits and veggies in their diets. Eating together also helps your child know that they belong within the family unit. Spending just 20-30 minutes enjoying a meal with your child is also the perfect time for them to start learning the proper table etiquette. 

After all, you are not born knowing how to hold and use a fork, knife, and spoon. It must be taught. The Let’s Eat Together Placemat is just the right teaching tool for the job. The thick, durable placemat comes with a wipe clean surface that is 17x12 inches in length.

The placemat is double sided. One side focuses on learning proper table manners. It includes fourteen check boxes of different table manners that the child can do. Helpful table manners such as, “I don’t play with gadgets or toys at the table”, “I kept my elbows off the table”, I helped clear the table”, and a big one, “I ate with my mouth closed”. 

The other side has educational table games for the whole family to enjoy during meal time in the form of question prompts. For example, one question asks, “What make you feel…happy, excited, proud, worried, etc. and why?” Or, can you complete the alphabet while naming an animal for each letter? There is also a spot for doodling and to play tic-tac-toe. The placemat comes with a dry erase marker too.

We received two placemats to use with my littles who are 9 and 4 years-old. My nine-year-old is pretty efficient with proper table manners but every now and again she does need a little reminder to keep her elbows off the table. My four-year-old son benefited the most from this placemat as he is just learning proper table etiquette. At each meal we made it a game to see how many check marks he could earn. If he earned six check marks he received an after meal treat which consisted of screen time or something sweet. As we continue to use this, I am going to increase the required check marks to earn a treat.

Overall, I think this is a great tool in helping my children learn proper eating habits. We used these daily at every meal. I have found them to be extremely durable and they clean up well from spaghetti to syrup. This would make a neat gift for a new or veteran mom with young children. When we travel it is nice to know that we can eat out and use proper table manners in restaurants even if it is just Chick-fil-a! 

-Product review by Jacquelin Caffey, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, October, 2018