Grocery Shopping = Following Directions

(29 Months)

As you can see, we are on a following directions kick right now (probably because we're not so good at it yet).  We first practiced with Music = Following Directions and now, we are going grocery shopping to practice following directions.

We love grocery shopping.  We're still at an age where it's fun for them, and therefore fun for us too.  Our neighborhood grocery store, Publix, has the most incredible employees.  They are so sweet to the kids.  One morning we were pointing out different types of produce, "let's see how many different colors of apples we can find?" an employee overheard me, and suggested that if I have time, after I show them the apples she'd like to take us to the berry section to show the kids the different colors and shapes of berries.  Really?  Anyway, it's experiences like those that make the kidabunks really like going to Publix (plus they have those really awesome double grocery carts in the shape of a race car).

It's been raining here pretty hard, so the kids haven't been able to go with us to the grocery store (my incredible hubby has been taking care of that for us).  They were really sad that they couldn't go with their Daddy to the store, so we decided to create a mini, teeny, tiny grocery store for them in their playroom.  I removed everything off two of their shelves, and then grouped the play groceries as you would find them in the grocery store, handed them a shopping basket and a grocery cart and voila we had a little shopping extravaganza.  Somewhere during our shopping trip, Wild One decided to swap out the grocery cart for his Daddy's old briefcase.

Instead of letting them go nuts just grabbing everything off the shelves like they were in a Supermarket Sweep, I told them for this "game" we're going to look for certain objects.  Who can find and bring back the milk?  Who can name a yellow fruit?  After we played through all of the food items, they asked (demanded with tears) to play again.  Since we're in the "I do" independent stage, I'm going to make little signs for each of the food categories  (bananas, watermelon, carrots...) and label some trays and baskets that we have lying around the house.  That way they can put them back in the baskets themselves and play again.

This can also turn into a wonderful sorting game- all dairy products in one bin, all fruit in another...  It can also be sorted by color.  Don't you just love easy to set up games that require no out-of-pocket expense?