I don’t know about you but the chore I despise the most each week is grocery shopping. Unfortunately the town I live in still doesn’t have grocery delivery service, and I’m not sure it will ever happen. For as long as I can remember, I was always an unhappy grocery store shopper as a child. I’m sure I drove my mom crazy as I moped in the store complaining, “I’m bored. Are we almost done?”. Now that I have two young children I dislike grocery shopping even more. Today on Facebook I asked other’s what got them through the grocery store with their kids. Four out of the twelve answers I received were “Leave them at home.”. In a perfect world this is a wonderful solution to the problem, but rarely an option.
Instead, why not try to include your child in grocery store shopping. With a little additional planning before heading to the store, you can survive the store without wanting to leave your cart full of groceries in the middle of the store, because your precious spawn is driving you crazy. Additionally, you can work on building their language and problem solving skills.
Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt
Toddlers and Preschoolers:
Prior to going to the store, help your child find pictures of food items in the grocery store fliers or take pictures of the items you normally buy. Then help your child cut out and paste the pictures into a list. You may want to place the lists into top loading plastic sheet protectors and have your child mark off items with a dry erase marker so you can use the lists over and over again. To make your child feel extra important, purchase a clipboard and attach a crayon, pencil, or dry erase marker to it with a string so they can check off items as they find them. While you are helping your child create the list talk about various language concepts.
Language Concepts to Explore: food categories (fruit, dairy, meats etc), shapes, colors, size, number concepts (dozen, single, loaf), container names (box, bag, glass jar)
School Age Children:
Prior to shopping, have your child create their own shopping list based on one of their favorite meals. This is a great way to work on written and verbal language. As an extension to this activity, you may want to set a specific budget for them and have them plan a meal based on their budget. This is a great way to get them excited about dinner time and grocery shopping!
Language Concepts to Explore: more specific food categories (international, vegetarian, dairy, organic etc), food labels, package sizes (example 8 oz vs 12 oz)
Free Printable!
My kids favorite part of the grocery store is the produce section, because they love exploring all the colors and shapes. I have included a free printable for you to use while shopping with toddlers and preschoolers.
Of course not every trip to the store is going to be happiness with rainbows and butterflies. There will be some tears, a tantrum or two, and a child who will not stay in the the stupid car grocery cart even though they insisted that you push the oversized beast that just won’t steer right. As parents, we know that this stage will soon pass, and we will be met with yet another challenge. In the meantime, I hope these activities help ease the pain of grocery store woes.
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