When I go to the market, I put in my little basket...

18 April, 2018

If there's one thing many families have in common, it's not like grocery shopping. Ironically enough, the majority of children play pretending to do the market frequently! And with good reason. These situations are very rich in language-side learning. Here are 3 things your child can learn when he or she comes to the grocery store and ideas to go even further:

1- Enriching vocabulary

Of course, I don't teach you anything by telling you that there are a multitude of new words to learn during a visit to the supermarket. On the other hand, the grocery store is also a great opportunity to push food categorization further. My combine: Don't limit yourself to enriching the vocabulary related to food. There are also textures, colors, spatial prepositions (front, back, etc.) and everything you can see about other people who also shop for groceries.

2- The use of the ''I'' '

Around the age of 4, children start talking about themselves using the ''I''. When they are present 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'm'. If you go to a market offering tastings, let your young person take the lead and ask what he wants to taste. You can give the model using a nice polished sentence. My combine: You can buy an item at the request of your mini. Ask him to answer the question "What would you like to have? ''using the words learned and the preposition ''I'''' . To avoid seizures, offer a choice of pre-selected answers.

3- Memorization

Memory is an important tool for language. There are different ways to use it at the grocery store. Of course, your child can keep one or two items on the list. If your list is short and has only a few elements, why not try to remember together everything on it. You can also refer to the knowledge memorized about the elements (I'm looking for a food pundathed by chickens to make omelettes. Can you help me?). In fact, Les Belles Combines offers a very nice treasure hunt at the grocery store. This one is available in the Small Combines section of their website! My combine: I like to read about groceries before departure or flip through an imagier. It's great to see pride in the child's face when he remembers the food seen in the book and identifies it at the grocery store! With a little imagination, this everyday situation can turn into a little super stimulating ritual.