Attention Shoppers, Learning on Aisle One

This past weekend, Heath attended NASCAR as he does each spring and fall. It was also the weekend for the yearly Susan G. Komen 3-day, where my mother- and sister-in-law both walked. On Friday, the little boys and I headed out to cheer Nanny and Aunt B on. We stationed ourselves strategically near two women who were dancing, playing music, giving out candy and blowing bubbles. This location provided prime entertainment for the boys while we waited on the walkers to walk past. Holden and Cash enjoyed clapping and cheering for everyone and they were so excited to see their Nanny and Aunt B. We are SO proud of them!

After our cheerleading stint, we grabbed Stone from school, had lunch with Daddy and headed down to The Can to visit with my parents, NiNi and Pop. We had a blast and it was wonderful for me to have the extra hands since Heath was out-of-pocket at the races. Without extra hands on the weekend, the boys get really crazy. We love structure around here and non-structured weekends keep the boys a bit out of their element. But, since we were at NiNi and Pop's, the weekend flew by and the boys had a blast. In fact, I think it's taken them all of this past week to recover from the fun and the great outdoors!

My parent's house is on a cul-de-sac and the boys have a lot of freedom to roam. Pop also has a lot of fun toys for the boys to play on. There is a Gator, lots of dirt for digging and various work equipment. The boys spent a lot of time on the Gator cruising the streets. Here they are with Mommy and again with NiNi and Pop.

While we were there, my parents purchased three shopping carts for the kids to play with. They pushed them for miles and miles and, now that we're home, they continue to keep those wheels rolling. Since I'm always looking for learning experiences that interest the boys, I decided to focus on foods and grocery shopping and the boys are having a blast! We have some play food, but the boys would rather play with trash the super sophisticated, realistic food containers that I have lovingly collected for them.

Here's our set up. We have milk, OJ, eggs, yogurt,butter, crackers, pretty much everything you need for a good time!

Stone's list. I put all of this together duirng a nap time and haven't had time to do it exactly how I want. Now that I know this is a hit, I'll take photos and laminate and ring them for him to match and make choices. Stone has a hard time matching the things off my drawings. Not because I'm a bad artist or anything…

He found some milk, make sure you check that expiration date!

And, this would not be a Chambers family store if coupons weren't accepted, so here are some coupons for my big boy to use to lower his bills.

I'm sure you can tell, this has been a ton of fun – for both me and the boys! Sometimes the best learning activities aren't really planned out in advance… this one works well for us because the subject is a high attention getter these days. We're learning a lot about colors, nutrition, counting, store etiquette, etc. If the interest stays, I can really see this activity growing to help us learn about food groups, higher level counting, color matching and more. Now, we just need to work on getting some automatic doors installed on the front of our house and Stone will be in heaven!