Ideas for Having a Field Trip to a Supermarket

A great way to get students excited about a topic you are teaching is to take them on a field trip that reinforces what they are studying. A supermarket is an optimal choice for a field trip for students because of the variety of topics that can be focused on in the grocery store. This type of field trip can encompass the study of math, nutrition and home economics. In most cases, the store workers will be more than accommodating to your students, provided they are given advance notice and you visit when it’s not busy.

A grocery store is an appropriate setting to teach young people how to work within a budget. The lesson involves giving a shopping list and a set budget to different groups of students. The activity requires the teacher to visit the store ahead of time to determine the cost of the items on the list. Once at the store, the students are given a set amount of time to buy everything on their list while staying within their budget. As an extra incentive, students who spend less than their budgeted amount are allowed to use their extra money to buy dessert.

Visiting a supermarket is an excellent way to reinforce the concept of measurements for home economics students. Before visiting the store, students should spend time studying measurements such as tablespoons, cups, ounces and quarts. On the day of the store visit, groups of students should be given different recipes and sent to buy the appropriate ingredients that are as close as possible to the amount needed. The teacher will review the students' selections to make sure they made appropriate choices before buying the items.

You can help young students understand how to make wise food choices in a grocery store. Before the visit, review types of food items with the children and categorize them into either healthful or unhealthful choices. For example, you could ask the children to choose whether fried chicken or baked chicken should be placed in the healthful choice category. When you take your trip to the store, give the students a list of foods and have them choose a healthful example and an unhealthful example for each one. At the end of the lesson, allow each child to choose a healthful snack to buy.