Connect, Learn and have FUN grocery shopping with your children.

I was grocery shopping with my son on the weekend and he mentioned that the pricing on some items on specials are interesting – wondering why the stores bother with the specials?

I think he meant that there was a 500g item selling at $5 and there was 250g similar item on  special at $2.50.  He was initially trying to work out whether the 500g or the 250g was better value. As it turns out, they were the same value.

So I thought this would be a good topic for today’s blog post.

I have been writing about shopping with your children or grandchildren and using that shopping experience to bond and connect with them; however, there is so much more than just that.

Many parents worry about whether their children are learning in school and how to help them more. This would be your answer.

I remember when I was younger, I used to accompany my grandmother to the market by bus. My job was to help with the change (handle the money), watch out for the bus time and carry the shopping basket, while listening to how my grandmother bargained with the store owners etc.

I believe, on top of memorising tonnes of times-tables at school, the market environment would be my maths lessons platform in the most practical sense.

Let me share with you examples on how maths was applied in those instances:

  • Checking out the bus timetable – learning about numbers, reading time and estimating when we have to leave for the bus stops.
  • When handling cash, I had to think and calculate on the spot to make sure I was getting back the correct change.
  • Learning about different measurement units, such as when the shopkeepers use different tools to weigh the goods.

In the current situation, you can use the whole supermarket and your kitchen to be your educational lab.

For a younger child, you can say:

  • 4 red apples & 6 green apples and get them to count out loud when placing the apples in the bag/basket – here they learn about colours, names of items, and counting.
  • Older children – get them to learn about the measurement. I.e. weigh the banana, apples, or grapes and ask them what they think that item would cost. For example, if the bananas are $5.00 per kilo, and the weighing machine shows 500g, how much would the bananas cost? And if there are 5 bananas in the 500g bag, how much would be one banana?

Do you see how much the children will learn about maths when it is used practically on a daily basis?

One thing I would like to stress is please use these exercises in a FUN way, i.e. make it as a game, and when they are having fun, they will want to play with you more often – so they are literally learning while having FUN with you.

They would have had enough structured learning from school; what you are sharing with them right now is applying what they are learning but in a way more FUN approach than school 🙂

So, for example, you can say, I wonder how much would each banana cost on average? Do you know how to find out? Would it be more value if we were to buy peaches instead? Wonder how much would each peach cost? And let your children figure it out on how to calculate the prices.

If you have not done grocery shopping with your children in a while, this may a good reason to start again and have FUN with your children! – Connect and Learn from FUN grocery shopping trips!