Who Needs Hannaford?

I have been saving empty cottage cheese containers, cereal boxes, and spice bottles for a few weeks with the intent to set up a make believe grocery store for Tanner and Abigail. Once my collection was large enough I set all the containers up on the coffee table along with dishes and play food.

I got two small brown paper bags with handles for them to use as shopping bags...they had lots of fun putting items in their bags and then taking them out.

Abigail even got a small pot from the Fisher Price kitchen and pretended she was cooking some of the foods that she bought at "the store". At one point Tanner sprinkled some "cinnamon" in Abigail's soup...too cute.

The next time I got the "grocery store" stuff out I dressed Tanner and Abigail in the aprons they got for Christmas from their Great Aunt Till and Uncle Charlie. They are a little long so I had to fold them up a bit which created a small pocket around their waist. I tucked a used up gift card into each of their pockets to use as payment for their groceries. I grabbed the Elmo remote from their toy bag and used that as the check out scanner. Each item they handed me I scanned before putting it into their shopping bag. Once they finished shopping I scanned their card and gave it back to them. Then they would walk away with their groceries saying, "Bye-bye" to which I replied, "Thank you for shopping, please come again soon." Tanner and Abigail would walk around the island in the kitchen before returning and emptying their bag to do it all over again. We had a great time!

A week later I bought two small bags from Target that look just like the reusable bags you can buy at the grocery store. These have Sesame Street characters on them and they were only $1.00 each. I keep the bags stored with the grocery store items and I don't have them out all the time. I add to our collection as boxes or containers become yucky or destroyed (toddlers LOVE to chew, shred, and tear). A shopping cart would be a great addition to this pretend play...maybe I will get them one for their birthday.