Errands can be fun, they can also be huge flops. After church yesterday I knew I needed to run to Trader Joe’s with my daughter in tow. No biggie right? The thing is Trader Joe’s is about 35 minutes away and after sitting quietly at church I wasn’t so sure we’d have a good time. On the way to church, I asked my daughter if she’d like to make an on the go post for the blog. I suggested a super simple grocery store alphabet hunt and she agreed. All we had to do was borrow a sheet of paper from church since we had everything else in the car already!
Need more in the car activities? Check these out!
Gather your materials. You will need a clipboard, something to write with, and a piece of paper.
Write out the alphabet on the paper. The jazzy title is completely optional. 
Hit your favorite grocery store with your favorite letter hunter. 
You can choose to go letter by letter but if you are trying to make this a quick trip just check off the letters you find and don’t worry about order. Also prep your child that they will likely not find every letter and that’s OK. B for banana was our first of many b finds ( blueberries, bar, brownies). 
Keep the excitement going by saying things like ” Oh you better get ready to check off M.” Then push the cart near the milk for example and let your child put two and two together. I also said things like ” Can you guess what I am going to buy that starts with y?” and she yelled out “Yogurt!” This works if your child has enough letter-sound knowledge for it but don’t make this activity about challenging them with new things, it should be a fun game for you to play together. 
When there was a drought of new letters she went back through her memory of what she saw earlier. ” Mama I saw hydrangeas in the front of the store so I am going to cross out h ok?” Yes! The reality is that there is no wrong way to play with this idea, as long as you are playing with letters and letter sounds. You can even base it only on sight finding letters in signs.
Michelle says
I love that your ideas are so easy and do-able. I could honestly decide on the spur of the moment to do this as we pulled into the grocery store parking lot and I know my child would get a lot out of it. My preschooler is only 3.5, so I probably wouldn’t do the whole alphabet since she only knows about half her letters, but even if she only had a few letters to hunt for, it would keep her from fighting with her big brother long enough for me to grab some stuff for dinner. Win-win-win!
Reena Lewis says
Any type of grocery hunt beats my son throwing boxed goods out of the cart. He’s not old enough to a letter hunt because he’s only one and a half, but he is learning colours. Maybe we can try to do a colour mental checklist. LOL
Courtney @ Mommy & Her Men says
I WILL be doing this! Grocery shopping with my Little Man is almost always a challenge. There are so many different ways to do this with him! I’m *almost* excited for my next shopping trip! Thanks so much!
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Shavannah says
Love this idea!