When I Go to the Market: Learning and Discoveries
18 April, 2018
If there's one thing many families have in common, it's not enjoying grocery shopping. Ironically enough, most children frequently play pretend grocery shopping! And for good reason! These situations are incredibly rich for language learning. Here are three things your child can learn during a trip to the grocery store and ideas to go even further.
1- Vocabulary Enrichment
Of course, I'm not telling you anything new by saying that there are a multitude of new words to learn during a trip to the supermarket. However, the grocery store is also an excellent opportunity to push food categorization further. My tip: don't limit yourself to enriching vocabulary related to food. There are also textures, colors, spatial prepositions (in front of, behind, etc.), and everything you can observe about other people who are also doing their grocery shopping.
2- Using "I"
Around the age of four, children begin to refer to themselves using "I." When they are at the grocery store, our little ones want so many things (which we don't always want to buy!). This is a great opportunity to reinforce the pronoun "I." If you go to a market that offers tastings, let your child take the lead and ask for what they want to taste. You can model this by using a nice polite sentence. My tip: you can buy an item at your little one's request. Ask them to answer the question "What would you like to have?" using the words they've learned and the pronoun "I." To avoid tantrums, offer a choice of pre-selected answers.
3- Memorization
Memory is an important tool for language, and there are different ways to use it at the grocery store. Of course, your child can be responsible for remembering one or two items on the list. If your list is short and only contains a few items, why not try to remember everything on it together? You can also refer to memorized knowledge about items (I'm looking for a food laid by chickens to make omelets. Can you help me?). My tip: I like to read a book about the grocery store before leaving or browse a picture book. It's great to see the pride on the child's face when they remember the foods seen in the book and identify them at the grocery store! With a little imagination, this everyday situation can turn into a super stimulating little ritual.
Want to simplify your grocery trip with the little ones even more? Discover our practical notepad specially designed for this task!