Grocery Shopping

One of my fellow teachers asked the parents in her class to bring in clean boxes and containers of things they purchased at a grocery store. They got a deluge! The packages have been making their way around the building and this week it's our turn.

An entire toy shelf was dedicated to grocery items, with toy fruits and vegetables put in short bins on a table to look like the produce section. We had several cash registers, shopping carts, and lots of paper shopping bags. Two of the shopping carts have pretend infant seats, so of course several children brought their "babies" along.

My 3s this year are a little younger than the last time I taught this age, so they mostly did shopping only. Older kids will take the shopping over to the play kitchen to put the groceries away and maybe make a meal. Also, this group of children didn't play with each other but relied upon the adults to ask them what they would do next. In the past the children have gotten so involved taking on different roles (cashier, bagger, parent, etc.) it was fun to watch. It was much more hands-on for the adults this year.

Allergy Note: For the most part this is an allergy friendly activity, but if you have a severe allergy in your class you might consider removing any packages that once contained the allergen, such as peanut butter for a peanut allergic child. You could also wash the outsides of all the containers and then seal them shut, but I guarantee SOMEONE will try to get them open no matter how much tape you use.