How to teach your children to shop for groceries so that they begin to understand. In this article by Mama and The Word, I will show you seven simple steps that will help you to teach your children to shop for their food, this will encourage so many new life skills for your child. So, if you want to learn more about teaching your children essential skills to use when visiting the supermarket. Make sure to read to the end of this article, and if you enjoy it then please leave a comment below.
What Can You Hope To Teach Your Child When Shopping In The Supermarket
How to teach your children to shop for groceries has to be one of the top life skills that you can show your child along with cooking, cleaning, and budgeting.
At the end of the day, we all have to eat and teaching your child about what they eat and how they make choices is a good skill to have in life.
Food shopping may not be everyone’s favorite task but it can be a great opportunity to teach your children.
There are a variety of different skills that you can teach when shopping for your weekly food. Shopping is a skill, not only do you have to plan and list your items but you also need to budget too.
Finding the correct product and looking at the cost and freshness of the items as well as any special offers.
Checking date codes or quantities as well as the quality of the product they are purchasing.
How To Teach Your Children To Shop For Groceries – What’s On The List
Firstly start with making your shopping list. Children can do this too by drawing or listing the items they need.
This is great for their fine motor and gives them the opportunity to practice their mark-making skills. You could use worksheets, notebooks, and stickers to make your lists.
There are many things to get your children interested in food shopping in a fun way.
For More fun ideas while shopping with your child take a look at https://www.brighthorizons.com/family-resources/tips-for-grocery-shopping-with-children
What Is Your Budget
For the most part, we all have to stick to a budget for our food shopping. Telling children that we have a certain amount of money to spend on food or other activities is a good way of making children become aware of money as well as its value.
My favorite thing is when children think that you can go to the shop and pick whatever you want without paying or that you automatically have enough money on your bank card.
As children get older they can start to buy treats and items they want with their own money. This will make them more aware of budgeting and checking prices.
If you want to read more about budgeting for your family’s food check out this post here: How To Budget Your Family Food Shop As A Busy Mama
Looking & Listening
The supermarket can be a big busy place for adults as well as children. When you teach your children to shop you start with the numbers on the aisle, then the names on the signs.
Your child will become more aware of the surroundings they find themselves in. They can then start to look at the items on their checklist or in their notebooks and start crossing off items as they find them.
You can guide them by asking them what is next on their list or by telling them what to look for next.
This will encourage both their listening, looking, and mark-making skills as well as their vocabulary too.
How To Teach Your Children To Shop For Groceries – Compare The Price & Product
With everything you buy, you may well have brand favorites or you may not have any brand preference at all.
At Mama & The Word, we always look at the price, special offers, or at the weight before we buy. We love value for money, especially with a big family, any savings are welcome.
Sometimes you can have the same weight but you may have to buy two items instead of one. It may cost less or you may find you receive more products.
These skills are for slightly older children but it is a great skill to teach your child so they understand the concept of looking at price, quantity, and quality.
Quality & Freshness
Teaching your child how to pick and choose items for quality and freshness is a skill in itself. It will use their senses of touch, smell, sight, and sometimes taste.
Some families will have their favorite brands that they will always buy. However, it is sometimes a good idea to test other stores’ own brands as they can be considerably cheaper but still offer a quality product.
Looking at the freshness of fruit, vegetables, baked items, meat, and fish as well as expiry dates on tins, dairy products, and other items.
Helping children to pick food with the longest shelf life or expiry date means that food won’t be wasted or spoilt.
See More Here On: How To Teach Your Children To Shop For Groceries
How To Teach Your Children To Shop For Groceries – Packing & Unpacking
Teaching children how to pack the weekly food shop for transportation will help them learn what items go together.
Soft items like bread, cakes, and biscuits can be packed together. If they are packed with heavy items then they will become squashed and spoilt.
Laundry or cleaning products should be packed together. Cooked meats and dairy should be separate from raw meats and frozen items.
Tins and glass items should be packed with care or kept separate where possible.
Sorting Foods
Once at home you can unpack the shopping bags with your children. Children can unpack items that are at an easy level for them.
They shouldn’t unpack anything that is too heavy or maybe sharp or unsafe, such as cleaning products.
Children can learn to sort items that are similar to each other such as tins of tomatoes and baked beans, breakfast cereals, bread, biscuits, snacks, fruits, and vegetables too.
What I Learnt From Teaching My Children To Shop For Groceries
- Provides me with fun ways to teach my children to shop for groceries
- To always have a list so that I keep a plan in front of me especially when the children are with me
- Patients when I teach the children how to shop for food and other items. It may take more time than normal and that’s ok. This is a learning experience as well as a weekly chore
- Showing the children that they can make choices when food shopping.
- Promotes concepts about money, comparing prices, sizes, volume, weights, and numbers among other things
- Promotes vocabulary, speech, and language skills
- Provides me the opportunity to show my children how to pick good quality produce. As well as signs to look for when choosing fruit, vegetables, and other foods.
- Talk about the changing seasons with my children from the items in the shop.
Let me know if any of these tips helped and if you have others not listed here then let me know in the comments below. I love to hear from you.
Love Gem xoxo
