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Homeschooling: Math, Reading and the Grocery StoreNov 04 '00 Write an essay on this topic.As you know, opportunities for learning can be had just about anywhere. I would like to share some ideas for making your next trip to the grocery store a math extravaganza. I'll include ideas for younger children then older. For a young child the grocery store can teach a variety of ideas. You can talk about weight and measurement while getting fruits and vegetables and teach you child to read the scale. Have them put apples or oranges on the scale and see how close they can get it to a certain pound number such as 4 or 5. Have them see what happens when they add or subtract fruit from the scale. Basic counting skill can be taught by having them count out 5 bananas and 6 apples, or telling them I need 7 apples, I have 3, how many more do I need? Cereal aisles are a great place to work on color or word recognition. Have them find the yellow box of Cheerios or the green box of Apple Jacks for example. Basic number recognition can be practiced on any aisle by having them hunt for the number 2, 7, 8, etc. Begin to teach money by having them find the price for items. Begin estimation by asking them if the price is closer to 1 dollar or 2. ie, box of hamburger helper 1.29 closer to 1 or 2 dollars. For the older child, you can use many of the above activities while asking harder questions like I need a pound and a quarter of potatoes and having them get and measure them out. Some things have labels like a serving equals 6 pieces, approx 9 serving per bag, ask them to determine how many pieces are in the bag by using multiplication. Have them keep a running estimate of your total bill and then compare it to the total to determine the difference. Have them use division to determine price per unit, for example, a jumbo bag of diapers count of 48 for 11.99, how much is each diaper, then find the price per diaper of a smaller bag and determine which is the better buy. Have them recheck the price of meat by multiplying the cost per pound by the amount of pounds works on multiplying with decimals. If possible, bring a recipe along and when buying the ingredients have them decide the size of each based on how much is needed for the recipe. Work on percentages when finding a sale of x % off, have them determine what the sale price would be. Then have them determine the cost of a meal by writing down the menu for a nights meal and having them find and document the price for each item served then deliver a total for that meal. Finally, reading and writing skills can be used by having your child take notation of the grocery list and then take half the list and find the desired items. There are many ways to involve you child in shopping to make it into an educational field trip. I hope you find some of them useful.  |
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