Grocery Shopping Sanity Saver

Sometimes, we do something other than sit at home with our schoolwork.  ::gasp::  I know, it's a big surprise.  :)  We still have to take care of the house, feed ourselves, or just get out and breathe some fresh air.  I try to keep any non-schoolwork time as peaceful as possible.  My constant nemesis to peaceful days: grocery shopping with children.

Grocery shopping is BORING for the kiddoes (like pretty much all other kiddoes).  After about two minutes of being told I will not buy whatever crazy-expensive, sugar-coated, cartoon-endorsed munchable food  they see, the kiddoes are ready to be outta there.  Then they proceed to try to fill their boredom . . . by driving me insane (just kidding).  I've known for a while that I needed to come up with some way to keep the kiddoes occupied during our trips to the grocery store so we could get this simple task accomplished more effectively.

After the success of our zoo field trip scavenger hunt, I decided to use a similar strategy to give the kiddoes a diversion for our grocery trips.  I took my grocery list and wrote out the items on index cards (I also made up extra cards for our common purchases so that I can reuse the same system each time we go to the store).  I punched holes through one corner of the cards, separated them into three groups, and put each group onto a metal ring.  When we got to the store, I gave each child one ring of cards, and told them that they were responsible for finding all the items on their personal "list."

Everything together and ready to go.

They LOVED it.  They have never been so excited to take care of the mundane part of our shopping excursion.  I arranged the cards so that they would come up in order as we went through the aisles, so each time someone picked something up, I would have everyone read off the next item on their lists to be prepared for their next "turn."  And as an added bonus for this effort, the boys got some reading practice as well. 

Athena also had extra tasks to do for some of the items on her list.  Finding the best price for tomato sauce or deciding what size block of cheese we need to last two weeks if we eat a certain amount each day were worthwhile challenges to get her brain working for a moment or two.  In the future, I will add a list of possible extra considerations to the back of the individual cards so she (and the boys at some point) can start thinking about them in advance.

So, the sum total: Mommy got a peaceful and enjoyable trip to the store; everyone got a little reading practice; and Athena got to use her math skills in everyday situations.  It was definitely a successful "school" day.

--Little Miss Crazy