How we make the weekly grocery shopping fun.
Grocery shopping is the hidden nature's-sensory-bin for your Bubu to indulge in.
We all have to go grocery shopping weekly and I was never fond of it. Maybe because we do our grocery on weekends. I feel weekends are for fun and chilling and grocery shopping, just doesn't cut the bill, it's not weekend worthy.
My Bubu on the other hand loves grocery shopping. If it was up to him we would have gone every single day. I know as we did try once, for two whole weeks I decide I will take him grocery shopping as many times as he asks for it. Believe me or not, we went grocery shopping everyday until I had to put my foot down.
However this made me rethink this act of grocery shopping and how to add some fun in it. It's can be a very enriching experience for a child especially as all your senses can be activated. Here are some fun games to play as you shop next weekend. These games can be played in both a farmers market or in a supermarket.
#1 Guess the produce
In this you hold up a veggie or fruit and ask your Bubu to guess the name. There will be some they will know and then some which they won't know at all. It's a great way to learn new names for produce. My Bubu knows most of them thanks to this book, Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z. My Bubu can recognize most of them (90%) even though the pictures on this book aren't realistic. I would recommend to add it to your collection it's awesome. This activity also engages the sense of sight.
#2 Which is more heavy
In this you give two different vegetable/fruit in your Bubu's hand or you can give the same kind but different weights. You ask "Which one is more heavy?". They gauge and let you know. Its interesting how accurate they are. This activity engages the sense of touch.
#3 Touch and smell
Hold out different vegetables and fruits and ask your Bubu to feel the different textures and smell the different fruits. This activity engages the sense of touch, sight and smell. You can tie this activity with the first one - guess the produce.
#4 Tasting
We always taste the samples on display. Most supermarket chains do not have samples but luckily for us we switched to Whole Foods couple years back and recently I have seen they always have at-least 4-5 samples on any given day. For a guaranteed sample tasting experience try your local farmers market. We visit our local farmers market once in a while where there are samples outside every vendor. Who does not like snacking and shopping. This activity engages the sense of taste.
We are always laughing and giggling playing all these games. I feel this is one activity where you engage all your Bubu's senses and get your mundane chore done at the same time. Grocery shopping is the hidden nature's-sensory-bin for your Bubu to indulge in. This has made grocery shopping something I look forward to.
Definitely there are days when we are not in the mood or short on time and we do not play any of these games. But it's always fun when we do. Try it out and let us know if you play any other games at the grocery.
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