What is a Playful Feast?
Think structured play, not food fight.
OpenSeat Playful Feasts are unique gatherings designed to bring parents and children together to engage in play, conversation, and delicious food around the dinner table.
OpenSeat’s vision is to see people connect through meals, and so we see mealtime as being more than ‘just eating’; meals can also be a time of creativity, discovery, education, social connection and fun.
As a meal campaign of the OpenSeat meal-hosting platform, the aims of a Playful Feast is to foster fun and meaningful connections between parents and their children, contributing to the strength of family relationships and childhood development.
The guidelines we’ve developed are designed to bring parents (or caregivers) and children together to engage in play and conversation during a meal. We invite hosts — not necessarily parents of children themselves — to plan and host a meal for families in their community or a community they have access to, providing parents and kids with a space to eat, play, converse and connect, without the distraction of screens* or the busyness of daily life. There are two main ways the Playful Feast idea can be brought to life, depending on the play medium:
Where food is the play medium that prompts interactions and conversation around the table
Where toys or other non-food props are the play medium that prompt interactions, in the context of a meal.
Our desire is that you creatively engage with the suggestions in our guidelines – much depends on the specific children and parents in your target community and your own skill set as a host (or hosting team).