Activities
Math at the Grocery Store
The grocery store is one of the best examples of a place
where math is real. It's a great place for practicing measurement, estimation,
and quantity. Since trips to the store usually affect everyone in the family,
the following activities include various levels of difficulty within the
activity.
Allowing your children to participate in weighing, counting,
and figuring price per unit versus price per pound will help improve their
ability to estimate and predict amounts with accuracy.
Get Ready
Grades K-2
What you'll need
Grocery store coupons and paper
What to do
- Involve the family in making a shopping list. Mark checks or tallies next
to each item to indicate the number needed. This helps children learn to
collect data.
- Involve the children in predicting how much milk or juice will be needed
for a week. You might decide to estimate by cups, explaining that 4 cups are
equal to a quart and 4 quarts are equal to a gallon. Also, try estimating by
liters. How does a liter compare to a gallon?
- Choose coupons that match the items on the grocery list. Discuss how much
money will be saved on various items by using coupons.
| Parent Pointer |
 |
Preparing a shopping list from advertised prices can
help children with mental math and estimation. |
Weighing In
Grades 3-5
What you'll need
A grocery scale or your scale at home
What to do
- Help your child examine the scale in the grocery store or the one you have
at home. Explain that pounds are divided into smaller parts called ounces
and 16 ounces equal a pound.
- Gather the produce you are purchasing, and estimate the weight of each
item before weighing it. If you need 1 pound of grapes, ask your child to
place the first bunch of grapes on the weighing scale, and then estimate how
many more or fewer grapes are needed to make exactly 1 pound.
- Let your child hold an item in each hand and guess which item weighs more.
Then use the scale to check.
- Ask questions to encourage thinking about measurement and estimation. You
might want to ask your child: How much do you think 6 apples will weigh?
More than a pound, less than a pound, or equal to a pound? How much do the
apples really weigh? Do they weigh more or less than you estimated? Will 6
potatoes weigh more or less than the apples? How much do potatoes cost per
pound? If they cost 10 cents per pound, what is the total cost?
- Try weighing items using the metric system. How many grams does an apple
weigh? How many kilograms does a sack of potatoes weigh? How does a kilogram
compare to a pound?
Let your child experiment with the store scale by weighing
different products.
| Parent Pointer |
|
There are many opportunities to increase estimation and
measurement skills by weighing objects in the produce section of the
grocery store. |
Get into Shapes
Grades 2-4
What to do
- Show your child the pictures of the shapes on this page (cone, cylinder,
square boxes, and rectangular prism) before going to the store. This will
help your child identify them when you get to the store.
- At the store, ask your child questions to generate interest in the shapes.
Which items are solid? Which are flat? Which shapes have flat sides? Which
have circles for faces? Which have rectangles? Do any have points at the
top?
- Point out shapes and talk about their qualities and their use in daily
life. Look to see what shapes stack easily. Why do they? Try to find some
cones. How many can you find? Look for stacks that look like a pyramid.
Determine which solids take up a lot of space and which ones stack well.
Discuss why space is important to the grocer and why the grocer cares about
what stacks well. (More space allows for more products to be stored.)
| Parent Pointer |
|
Recognizing the different shapes that food is packaged in, such as
square boxes, rectangular boxes, cones, and cylinders, will help
children connect math and volume principles to the real world. |
Check
It Out
Grades 2-3
What you'll need
Money
What to do
- Have your child estimate the total price of items in a shopping cart. An
easy way to estimate totals is to assign an average price to each item. If
you have 10 items and the average price for each item is $2, the total price
estimate would be about $20.
- Using the estimated total, ask your child: If I have 10 onedollar bills,
how many ones will I have to give the clerk? If I have a 20-dollar bill, how
much change should I receive? If I get coins back, what coins will I get?
- At the checkout counter, what is the actual cost? How does this compare to
your estimate? When you pay for the items, will you get change back?
- Count the change with your child to make sure the change is correct.
| Parent Pointer |
|
Help your child use mental math by estimating cost.
Then have your child participate in the checkout process where the total
is added up, money is exchanged, and change is returned. |
It's
in the Bag
Grades K-4
What to do
- After getting home from grocery shopping, have your child guess how many
objects there are in a bag. Ask: Is it full? Could it hold more? Could it
tear if you put more in it? Are there more things in another bag of the same
size? Why do some bags hold more or less than others?
- Put several 1-pound items in a bag. Let your child pick it up. Estimate
the weight and then count the items. Was your estimate close or not?
- Estimate the weight of the bag of groceries. Does it weigh 5 pounds, 10
pounds, or more? How can you check your estimate? Now, compare one bag to
another. Which is lighter or heavier? Why?
| Parent Pointer |
|
Explore ways to estimate volume and weight by looking
in the bag and feeling how much it weighs. Compare it to a known weight
(such as a 5-pound bag of sugar). |
Put
It Away
Grades K-1
What you'll need
Paper, pencil, ruler, and computer
What to do
- After getting home from grocery shopping, find one characteristic that is
the same for some of the products. For example, some are boxes and some are
cans.
- Put together all the items that have the same characteristic.
- Find another way to group these items.
- Continue sorting, finding as many different ways to group the items as you
can.
- Play "Guess My Rule." In this game, you sort the items and ask
your child to guess your rule for sorting them. Then, reverse roles and let
your child sort the items so that you can guess their rule.
- Using paper, pencil, ruler, and computer, make a chart of how many items
are in each category.
| Parent Pointer |
|
Putting away groceries helps children develop
classifying and reasoning skills and the ability to examine data or
information. |