From the article: Learning Adventures in the Grocery Store
Everyday tasks, like grocery shopping, can be a fun learning adventure for you and your child. It's a perfect hands-on learning opportunity. Share your ideas for teachable moments in the grocery store. Learning Moments
Market day
- Thanks for this opportunity. Kids are more excited to seeing fresh things in the market. Hence take them in the market on a market day particularly for us in Africa. They get the names of fruits like avocado, mangoes. guavas, jack fruits, pineapples, apples, different vegetables, and meats like lamb, mutton, pork, beef, fish varieties, etc.
- —Guest Simbwa David Jograss
Trader Joe's world tour through food
- Our local Trader Joe's has many foods from all over the world, they will even send you a list of the countries they import from. So we take our list of countries and see how many things we can find, mark our maps, use it geography/social studies etc. Where does coffee come from? Who produces the most cheese, and how many different kinds? Asian pasta vs Italian pasta. The possibilities are vast. We even go into the meaning of ORGANIC, FREE TRADE, and other distinctions for product marketing.
- —Guest Suzan D Reed
Health & Wellness Consultant Author
- Prepare your grocery list and share items you'll be shopping for with your kids. Have your children cut or pull out pages of colorful whole foods from magazines. Sort the pictures in the six "Mypyramid.gov" food group categories. Give each child the paper clipped items, dividing the food groups with the number of children participating in shopping. On arrival, give each child their very own grocer's hand-held baskets, placing their food images inside of basket. With a group high five, the scavenger hunt begins. Once completed each child swaps baskets and examines bounty for quality, freshness, smell and expiration dates (if apply). It's amazing how competitive they'll be - for even a minor bruised apple loses points when playing this health of wealth - educational game! - Author- of the "Ultimate Diabetes Meal Planner" Jaynie Higgins C.P.T./A.C. www.jaynie.me or www.jayniesworld.com
- —Guest Lifeabetes
five different colors
- It is important to teach nutrition as well. I make my kids go crazy in the produce department. each has to find 5 different colored veggies or fruits. with 3 kids, we end up with 15 different items. It is great fun. The colors are yellow(lemons, starfruit, bananas), red(tomatoes, peppers, apples, strawberries), orange(sweet potato, carrots, oranges, pumpkin), green(peppers, cabbages, lettuces) and blue/purple(red onion, blueberries, red cabbage). This helps kids get different vitamins and cut down my time in that department.
- —Guest DawnMarie77
