The best role-playing scenarios often take place when children pretend to be their parents and act out daily routines from their own lives. This grocery store dramatic play is always a huge crowd-pleaser because preschoolers are familiar with this routine. They often have rich life experiences with it and are able to act it out in complex and engaging ways.
At the beginning of the school year, the grocery store (or this restaurant) is one of the best choices to get started with incorporating rich dramatic play centers in the classroom. Children go to the grocery store all the time! They have likely been doing it every week for their entire lives. Because it is so familiar, the role-playing comes very naturally.
How to set up a Grocery Store Dramatic Play Center
Stock the Grocery Store Shelves
There are 3 different ways to stock the shelves of a dramatic play grocery store:
- Use empty recycling containers. The kids love this! About a week before the center is scheduled to debut, ask the children to go home and gather up all of their empty (clean) recycling containers. Invite them to bring them in and stock the shelves with “real” groceries!
- Hold a food drive. Organize a food drive in your school or classroom. Collect canned goods and other non-perishables. Play with them in the grocery store dramatic play center. Then, when the center is finished, donate them to a local food bank.
- Purchase play food. This is obviously the most expensive of the 3 options, but it is ideal for classrooms that have the storage space and funding to purchase items that can be used year after year. Melissa and Doug make excellent quality materials for a grocery store dramatic play center: canned goods with lids, fruits, vegetables, and even pantry staples.
Add shopping carts and cash registers
Each dramatic play center needs to have 1 main component – a centerpiece that makes it look and feel different from the regular housekeeping center. At the grocery store, it’s the carts and the cash registers. These can be found online or at educational supply stores, but a frugal teacher might find similar items at garage sales too!
Think outside the box as well! Make a “conveyer” belt by covering a low table with black paper. Add a square of aluminum foil for the “scale” and lane numbers (printed from this Grocery Store Dramatic Play set).
Add Literacy and Math Elements
Always look for ways to maximize learning in the dramatic play center. Make it a print-rich environment by providing paper for the children to write shopping lists, sales flyers for finding the best bargains, and coupons for cutting practice.
Another way to add literacy to the center is to add books about going to a grocery store. A few good ones for preschoolers include:
- At the Supermarket by Anne Rockwell
- Maisy Goes Shopping by Lucy Cousins
- Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
- What Happens at a Supermarket? Where People Work series
Label Everything
The Shop Smart dramatic play area is going to be a very busy place during center time. Help the children keep it organized by labeling everything. Not only does it increase the print in the center, labels provide opportunities for students to practice organization and sorting.
Utilize the space and resources in your own classroom. All of the vegetables pictured are the regular food from the home living area. Sort them into baskets and label them. Ta-da– a vegetable display!
Create Job Assignments
Name tags are a key component in every dramatic play center. Provide these job assignments to help children take on different roles, to mitigate the bickering about the cash registers, and to help everyone find a way to participate and play.
Invite the Children to PLAY!
Getting kids excited to play is important! Introduce this center by presenting a problem such as: “We don’t have anything to eat for lunch today. What are we going to do?” When the kids suggest going to the store, make a list together and then head to dramatic play. The students always take over from there, but it helps to get them all thinking about the grocery store.
Here are a few affiliate links, just for your convenience, to the types of toys that we have:
You can find all of the signs, labels and shopping lists in this set:
Have fun playing and learning with your children today!
Super cute…can I come play, too?! 😉 I bet your kiddos love it!
Elissa
Mrs. Jones Creation Station
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