Organizing a Hands On Learning Trip to the Grocery Store

If taking your kids to the grocery store seems daunting, this is for you! What if I told you that grocery shopping can not only be a stress free event, but a fun, learning trip!

If you’re new here, I’m Tonya Johnson, founder of Helping Hearts Homeschool where I specialize in working with parents and ministry leaders who are focused on building a solid foundation for the next generation. I believe that it’s important to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to keeping the attention of our children. The world is fighting for their hearts; we need to fight harder. Like anything else, social media is just a tool. We simply focus on using it for positive vs negative.

Ok, so how do you organize a shopping experience that is not only stress free, but chalk full of learning? I'm gonna share with you two easy steps, walk you through our upcoming planned learning trip to the grocery store, and give you a freebie pack, so you can effortlessly plan your own learning trip to the supermarket!

1. Decide on a Theme

You can choose a fun theme if you have an upcoming party or special event coming up, but you can also just do this for your ordinary family dinner. No need to stress over this step, just pick one and go...

2. Make it age appropriate

The cool thing about this, is it's applicable to everyone from young preschool age to seniors in highschool. This means you can use it for one child, or your entire family at one time. Here are 4 learning experiences you can create with one simple grocery store trip. Make sure to watch the corresponding video to this blog for more info.

Menu - speaking age and older

Again, you can use a fun theme for this project, but you can also just do this during your average, ordinary, weekly grocery trips. For this portion of the blog, I'm going to just use normal grocery trips as an example. Keep in mind that these are simply four suggestions. You can use as many or as few as you'd like.

Menu planning is a part of our lives that as moms, can make our lives a whole lot easier. Including our kiddos in the process can help them get excited about food, learn about nutritional values, and feel validated in their opinions while also realizing that the word of meal time at home does not revolve around them. We all have different tastes and that's ok!

Organize the Shopping List - lower elementary +

This is an activity that you can make as easy or complicated as you'd like. You can have you child practice dividing grocery items into food categories or categorize them by where they're found in the store.

Shopping - able to hold a writing utensil and older

This is fun for all the kids! Whether you have a toddler who can cross off pictures of fruit or a high schooler who can navigate the store solo, we have an interactive shopping list for you!

Follow Up with Education Worksheets - Kindergarten +

It's easy to continue the grocery shopping themed fun when you get home from the store too. I've included a packet you can use to get started, you can also go to TPT and Etsy to search for more, or you could make your own. If you're interested in making your own, or making some to make an extra income, feel free to check out this blog.