31 Days Grocery Store Math

If you have never thought about doing school while you are running errands, you really should. Even if you don't homeschool, teaching your kids necessary life skills while running errands is important and really easy to do. If you avoid running errands with your kids, I encourage you to at least occasionally take them with you. That is how they will learn what it means to do the things that need to get done, like grocery shopping.


The grocery store is one of the easiest places you can go where school is pretty much a given. When they are little, doing simple lessons of colors and counting are easy and then of course there is the obvious nutrition lesson that can always be done. (What, you’ve never taught nutrition in the middle of the grocery store? Why not?) But as they get older and weighing the bag of apples isn't as exciting as it once was you have to get a bit more creative.

The Honeycrisp apples are $1.49 a pound - how much will we pay for 3 pounds?
The Granny Smiths are on sale for $0.99 - how much cheaper will 3 pounds of Granny Smiths be?
How many pounds of Granny Smiths can I buy for the same price as 3 pounds of Honeycrisp?

These are questions I ask my older kids. They don't have a calculator, I expect them to do it in their head or round up to make it easier. Mental math is so important and consumer math is an essential life skill that everyone needs. Everyone should know how much the food they eat costs. And how to make the budget they have work. I want them to know this skill before they move out on their own.


When you make homeschool a lifestyle and not just something you do, you find that learning happens all the time and you can get school done even when you don’t have the books. In fact when my kids were younger there were so many days where they had no idea that they were doing school. Now that they are older, they are on to me and know that no matter where we are or what we are doing I can turn it into “school”.

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