I've been meaning to post this for a LONG time and here I am finally getting around to it!
One day last fall as I realized Sweet P really loved shopping carts, I had the idea to create her own grocery store. I started saving boxes and containers from food we ate and her grocery store was born.
We have a little blue cart from IKEA that worked great as a cart, but she got her very own shopping cart from Papa Ray Ray for Christmas (now she uses both).
I threw in an old giftcard to serve as her credit card (she even signed the back while playing with The Farmer one day) and a few little bags.
She loves to play grocery store. She puts everything she wants in her cart (yogurt is ALWAYS in there) and comes to check out ("Will you check me out please?"). I scan all her stuff, tell her the total and help her bag her items. After it's all bagged, she pushes her cart with her bag on her arm to her "car" (aka the futon in the basement). And she ALWAYS has a baby in the cart as well.
This was such an inexpensive way to make play food for her and the containers are great for opening and closing activities. And as we do more with math this will be a great way for her to learn adding. I like to think it also shows her how we can reuse containers and boxes from our food.
Last week we put another shelf in the basement (read more in this post) and now she has shelves for her groceries! We'll eventually fill that shelf with other things, but for now it's a great place for her store.
