Market Games for Kids

Grocery List

• Have your child add his favorite food to the grocery list before you go to the market. He can write the food name or just the first letter on the list. He can then find the food item when you get to the store. Help an older child compare brands, nutrition and prices for his favorite food.

Divide and Conquer

• Give your older kids each one part of the grocery list and a shopping cart. There should be an equal number of items on each list, and each child should have access to a clock or watch. Give them 20 minutes to find everything on the lists and a meeting place in the store when they are finished. The first kid who gets everything on the list gets to choose what you will have for dinner and dessert that night.

Produce Colors

• Wheel your shopping cart through the produce aisles while your kids name five vegetables and fruits of the same color. Next, they can name five vegetables and fruits that must be different colors from each other. You can also have them name which ones you can eat raw and which ones must be cooked.

Alphabet Food

• Look for foods that start with the same letter. Have your child think of meals where everything starts with the same letter. For example, lunch could be a banana, bread, blueberry jam and boysenberry juice. Dinner could be steak, sweet potatoes, sourdough bread, salad and soda.

Price Check

• Have your child make his own grocery list of his top-five favorite foods. Look up each food on an online nutrition calculator and write down the nutrition information. He can find each food when you get to the store, and you can check the package label for any information you could not find on line. Have your child compare the nutrition information and prices. Use the electronic price checker, if the market has one. Let your child choose one or two items to buy.

Hot and Cold

• Have your kids think about which items you would never put in a bag together. For example, you would not put ice cream in a bag with hot soup, or eggs with a 12-pack of soda. Cleaners would not be packed up with food, and heavy bags of dog food or kitty litter would not be put in a bag with a loaf of soft bread.