5 Things to make Grocery Shopping Fun & Educational

If you're kids are not interested in the shopping because it's boring, why not give them activities to get them involved. These are a few of my tips that help me get my budget shopping done with all 4 kiddos! (We are Amazon affiliates, so there may be links below to help you find products I mention at no extra cost to you. You can find out more on my disclosure statement on my homepage. )

1- ABC Scavenger Hunt

They each try and find the letters A - Z in the labels and signs around them. The first to find all of them wins! My kids do this one automatically now as soon as we start shopping and it gives me a little bit of 'quiet' time. (You do get an occasional random letter called out Lol) If you have little ones, it helps with letter recognition and it lets them see how letters mean things (like candy sometimes 😁).

2- The Hidden Info of Shelf Tags

When I have to compare 2 items to see which one is the better deal, I'll get my kids involved and see if they guess the right one. Then we look at the tag and check $/oz and see which one is correct. This is really good for them to know how to do.

3- Try to read my List

I used to rewrite my list in print that way my kids could help me check off the items as we got them. However, I do teach my kids cursive in their homeschooling. (Common core cut cursive from the curriculum, however, I feel it is important for them to know at least the basics of it. This way, when they find something written in cursive they will be able to read it.) Allowing them to find items on my list gives them practice at reading different styles of cursive. Plus, they scratch out things as we find them which is fun for them.

Bonus- if you have adhd, scratching something off a list is therapeutic!

4- Practice at Rounding up

We round up all items to help account for taxes in our head.

Small items are to the nearest dollar up and bigger items you have to add 1 or 2 dollars for taxes. Our tax is right around 10% so it makes it pretty easy to guesstimate. When the kids want a toy, now they know $8.99 is more like $10 just by looking at it.

5- SPD Therapy

This one is for sensory kids. My youngest daughter used to have a pretty hard time with grocery shopping. Then I figured out that if I give her 'heavy work' (therapy, aka pushing the buggy, putting heavy things she could handle in the buggy) this actually gets her to enjoy shopping instead of being overwhelmed by the bright lights and lots of people at the store. If she's having a rough day we will use her panda sound-reducing headphones and essential oils too. But most days getting her involved with the heavy stuff helps just as much!

These are the things that we do to help our shopping go more smoothly. The only other thing that's pretty constant, is that on our big shops, they will each pick out a mini pie after we are all done. This gives them something to look forward to at the end of the trip. Let us know in the comments if you have any tips for shopping trips to share too!