Make a Plate Face
Counting, and playing with food's colours and shapes: make a funny face on a plate, counted out loud.
How it plays
An empty plate. Ruby Roo asks for two eyes, then a nose, then a big smile, and your child taps any food to put it there: blueberries, strawberry halves, banana slices, carrot sticks. Ruby Roo counts each one out loud. Every face is right, and food is never called good or bad. It's in Tiny Steps.
What it's for
Counting, and playing with food's colours and shapes: make a funny face on a plate, counted out loud. There is no score to lose and no way to fail: a wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's done.
Away from the screen: A real plate face
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- At snack time, give your child a plate and a few pieces of fruit and vegetables.
- They make a face: two eyes, a nose, a mouth.
- Count the pieces together.
- Then they can eat it, one eye at a time.
Three questions to ask while they play
- How many eyes does your face have?
- What did you use for the nose?
- Which colour is your smile?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- Two blueberry eyes! One, two.
- What a funny face! Is it happy?
Taking turns on one device: One of you does the eyes and the nose; the other does the smile.
If they find it hard
Count out loud with them, pointing to each piece. With Tiny Steps on, it stays on its gentlest level.
From two to eight
Tiny Steps: made for two- and three-year-olds too. With Tiny Steps on, it stays on its gentlest level, a not-yet tap is never counted, and there's nothing to read.
Switch Tiny Steps on in Who's playing?, on the grown-ups' page.
Every fact, and where it comes from
What Ruby Roo says in Make a Plate Face was checked against the page it links to.
- The five food groups are vegetables and legumes/beans; fruit; grain foods; lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, and legumes/beans; and milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or alternatives. (For grown-ups only: the games never call a food good or bad.) (Sydney Children's Hospitals Network)
What it practises
- Reading numbers. Knowing numerals and what they're called.
AC9MFN01 (Mathematics, Foundation) - Drawing and colouring. Making pictures: choosing colours and patterns, filling shapes, and drawing ideas of your own.
AC9AVAFC01 (Visual Arts, Foundation); AC9AVAFD01 (Visual Arts, Foundation)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for children from birth to five) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Make a Plate Face is part of Food & Cooking. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.
Updated