DIY Grocery Store!!

Our up coming unit in our curriculum is about 'Our Community' and the dramatic play area calls for a grocery store. I promised myself I would NOT spend any money to transform our dramatic play area into a grocery store...NOT even at the 35dollar store.....I mean the dollar store ;) We asked our families to bring in/donate their empty boxes, containers, old receipts, coupons, old wallets or purses to help create our store. 

So here it is!! And I didn't spend a dollar!!! 

I turned around our fridge, stove and sink from our home center and taped up some grocery store ads  to the back.

 The green basket has grocery bags and coupons in it.

For the checkout stand I used our table and put a box top on a doll changing table to create the 'conveyer belt' 

A prop box with an apron for the checker, purses, money and a few credit cards (it's amazing how many children know 'credit or debit?') lol 

They quickly got a routine down: the customer put their groceries on the conveyer belt and the checker would scan the item "beep" and put it in the bag next to the table. It was fun to watch and guide them through play. Our amazing Speech Pathologist happened to be in our room and she was talking to them and asking great questions like "How do we behave in grocery stores? Do we leave boxes of food on the ground? How should we put the eggs in our bags? Gently or throw them in? What would happen if we throw the egg carton in the bag? It brought up some great discussion throughout the remainder of their play. 

Our home center is not huge so while some children were 'shopping' at the shops-a-lot store others were cutting coupons to get ready for their turn to shop! (Great cutting practice!!!) 

This unit in our curriculum is 4 weeks so we will have lots of fun learning through play! We will add props and expand on concept through play such as: 

•Money and counting

•Taking turns in the different roles

•What are fruits and what are vegetables?

•What do you buy from the refrigerated section? 

•What are healthy foods and not do healthy foods? And so many more!!