Grocery Store Dramatic Play Activity for Preschoolers
A grocery store style dramatic play activity is a great idea for children in your preschool classroom.
Most children experience grocery stores or markets with their parents so it is something they might see quite regularily when they are outside of the home with their families.
To implement this grocery store pretend play activity with the kids in a classroom setting you might try the creative ideas & suggestions for kids below to make it fun and educational.
Preschool Grocery Store Dramatic Play Idea:
Grocery Store Uniform / Clothing:
You may try and get some long white coats or simple matching uniforms or matching colors for the children. These are clothing types that the staff and workers in these stores often are required to wear.
Grocery Store/ Market Name Tags:
You could cut out some simple name tags and put each child’s name on the name tag. Make the name tags colorful and fun. You could also find some old name tags from stores you may have worked at or use simple clear name tag holders. It is always more fun and personable to use name tags that you make and add the child’s name though.
Old Food and Cereal Boxes:
Grocery stores are full of different packages of food.
You could simply keep some old empty cereal boxes with brand names the children are familiar with if you desire. Or you could take a few simple cardboard boxes and place your own simple food words on the box.
This could use simple words that the children might be familiar with or simple words to help teach them different food names.
There are other simple types of packaging that you can keep when it is empty. (eg.) An old milk carton (clean and dry) or an old empty egg carton, juice cartons etc.
Cans:
Old tin cans, an old pop bottle etc. all work as good grocery items in your store. Just be sure that any old cans are safe and have NO SHARP EDGES. You can tape them off or better yet, use cans with no sharp edges. Be sure all items are clean.
Pick a few items that the children can relate to and make sure they are clean and dry. You will use these as food items in your pretend grocery store.
Grocery Shopping Bags:
You could bring in some shopping bags for the children to use to bag there groceries up or you a small grocery basket. These simple items can be bought online as well or found in dollar stores.
Toy Cash Register & Supplies:
You could try and find a toy cash register online or at a dollar store, toy store etc. This will be a good prop for those children working the grocery register.
You could make some colorful pretend money with certain dollar amounts on them if you wanted to get more elaborate. You don’t need fake money, but it can be used to add some realism and teaching ideas to the idea.
Pencils & Paper:
Other items that you would find in a grocery store are a worker with a pencil and pad of paper.
Plastic Fruit & Vegetables:
You could purchase a variety of plastic fruits and vegetable for your pretend grocery store. You may find these in dollar stores and online etc.
These are some the items that come to mind when thinking of a grocery store. You can set up an area with the items above and allow the children to pretend to shop for food, fruits and vegetables etc. They can go and browse the aisles and pay for their items.
Put on some fun upbeat music and let the fun begin.
Add On Activity:
Before doing this you could talk about a certain type of vegetable or fruit etc. Help teach the children a little bit about it then have some small samples for them to try and taste.