Grocery Store

I think the grocery store is my favorite dramatic play to set up. Probably because it's my favorite to watch! I did it in Kindergarten every year when we learned about money, and I loved looking over to see the kids pushing a full cart, purse on their shoulder, talking on a cell phone and complaining that the baby in the cart wouldn't stop crying. They love to imitate real life! That's one of the reasons to have dramatic play in any early-childhood classroom. They need the opportunity for real-play, where they imitate the things they see each day. Here are some things we learned today at the grocery store:

• How to take turns. I did spend much of the day sitting next to the register, helping the kids share it and take turns and that's fine with me. When I wasn't there, I heard them reminding each other to take turns. They did pretty well. The only meltdown was my own child. I'm so proud.
• Counting. They counted how many items they had, and how much money they had (at least how many bills, not the right $ amount of course).
• Sorting. As the shelves emptied after most of the food was purchased, I helped them sort it out to what type of food it was, and find the sign that showed where the food went.
• Literacy. The store is full of labels. Since they can't read yet, the labels also have a picture. But I made it a point to show and read the word to them, so they knew what it said as they were putting the food away. This is a pre-reading skill, where they are learning that words have meaning. It's the reason we have words everywhere in our room! I try to add literacy like this in every dramatic play center. And did you know that reading environmental print (labels on food boxes or signs) is also reading? It's often the first things kids learn to read. It makes them feel smart when you point out that they read it too. And confidence makes for a better reader!
• Writing. They took their grocery list writing very seriously! I could hear them asking each other what they wanted from the store when they were in the kitchen area, then write it down, and run over to the store to buy it. We ended up with some great lists at the end of today. It may look like scribbles, but it's words to a 3-year-old and one step closer to learning how to write.
 

• Responsibility and cleaning up. When clean up time rolls around, kids mysteriously disappear to other centers to play more. I gathered up the group who had played here the most today and they did a great job cleaning up in time for snack. We're getting quicker at this each day!

How to make your own grocery store:

• Save your garbage. Yep, I'm cheap. So I make my own groceries, using my groceries. I wrapped my boxes in packing tape and have used them through 3 years of Kinder, and now preschool and they're still in great shape. I have probably thrown some away, but it was just garbage anyway! A co-worker of mine bought the Lakeshore set of grocery food and one year I combined it with mine in my store. The kids never touched it. I think because they couldn't read what it was, and since it wasn't the "real" stuff, they didn't recognize the environmental print they can read. So, the garbage was better.
• This is what I'd like to do someday with it. Modge Podge my food boxes onto wood blocks. I love Pinterest!
•  Make shelves. Use shelves you have, use storage boxes like I did-I also had extra shelves from my bookshelf to put across the boxes.  Just use your resources and lay out your food somehow. In Kinder, I'd use the overhead cart and all sorts of things. You can see it doesn't look exactly like a store, but their imaginations fill in our gaps!
• Labels. Add literacy! I got my grocery store labels, plus shopping lists, years ago at a conference. It's not hard to make your own, though. Google image. Favorite resource. Shopping lists and pencils also add literacy.
• Buy fake money. Dollar Tree. 1 pack is plenty, or money is all over!
• Save fake credit cards from junk mail. Chase Bank and American Express use their money to provide my students with fake credit cards and I'm very grateful!
• Save old purses and wallets. I even save my broken or torn ones and they get used. I save old cell phones and sunglasses and other things to put in the purses too, just anything adults would carry around!
• Buy a cash register. Mine was only about $15 at Target a few years ago and has been used and abused and is still in great shape. It even has a belt that moves the food along. Fancy Shmancy. This is a great purchase because it can be used in many different dramatic play areas!
• Buy a shopping cart and baskets. This was another Target purchase and it came with some food too. The hand baskets came from Dollar Tree and I use them for many things, so another great purchase!
• Stock with play food too. Food boxes are great, but I also add my produce, meat, and bakery items. Just like a real store!

The grocery store and housekeeping area were set up today because we are learning about families. After getting turns to stand in front of the class last week and talk about themselves on both days, they were so excited to get up today! They each shared their pictures and named the people in their family. We also talked about the word sibling and watched a short clip from a Sesame Street podcast about the word sibling. As they drew pictures of their families in their journals, a few of them pointed out their siblings to me and used our new vocabulary word!

Wednesday, we'll be making people patterns (boy, girl, boy, etc.). Explore patterns at home by making and having your child finish a pattern. We'll be doing lots of this at preschool over the next few weeks and it's a great math skill!