Week 37: 10 Free Printables to Survive the Grocery Store

The Trip Clip® has lots of great activities you can print and use at the grocery store with your kids. I like to take these to the grocery store with a small clipboard and pen to entertain my kids while I get the shopping done. The packet includes a picture grocery list, a grocery bingo board, a grocery word search puzzle, a maze, letter tracing, a grocery list in Spanish, a counting and graphing game, an alphabet game, a grocery-themed secret message puzzle, an alphabet bingo board, and a writing template.

I recently added in an answer key too!

Print the packet for free

Every activity in this packet will be fun as is and even better if you get an account to customize them for your next trip to the store. You can buy individual activities or a bundle of them here.

Picture Grocery List

I found it was always worth it to take the time to make a custom grocery list for my kids. You can cater it to their age, ability, and interests. It’s a wonderful way to keep them engaged, teach them some life skills, and spend quality time with them.

Check out my blog post about shopping with young kids:

Playing the Grocery Shopping Game

As my kids got older, they preferred to use the picture grocery list on my phone. Here are instructions for how to do this:

Grocery Store BINGO

This turns your grocery trip into a scavenger hunt to keep your kids engaged while you shop. See if they can get a BINGO or even find everything on the board. You can print this or use it on a mobile phone.

If you want to make a new BINGO board, here’s how:

1. From your PC, click here to purchase the BINGO activity.
2. Log in to your account using the Customer Login link at the top of the page
3. Click the ACTIVITIES link in the menu bar at the top of the page
4. In the Activities menu on the left of the page, click Bingo
5. On the left side of the screen, click the radio button labeled Grocery Store.
6. This will show you a sample board. From here you have a few choices:
   • You can print the board as is
   • You can edit individual square on the board by removing and adding items, or changing the text
   • You can use the “Shuffle this board” link at the top of the preview to generate new BINGO board layouts with these same items on it. I like to use this option, and then add each new BINGO board to the Print Queue until I have enough for every student in the class.
   • You can refresh the page to get a whole new set of 25 pictures for your board.

Grocery Word Search

For a twist, try turning your grocery list into a word search puzzle! Your kids can find each item in the puzzle while you get them from the shelves.

There is 1 word search puzzle in the free packet – an easy 7×7 one. You can enter your own grocery list and create as many word search puzzles as you want at all difficulty levels. You can make them as simple as 5×5 or as complicated as 20×20. Here’s how:

1. Purchase the word search activity on The Trip Clip website
2. From a desktop PC, go to the Activities page by clicking the menu item at the top of the page
3. Click the button for Word Search
4. On the left side of the screen, use the radio buttons to select your difficulty level
5. At the top of the Step 2, click the radio button for ‘Enter your own word list’
6. Enter your words into the edit box and click Add
7. A preview of your puzzle will appear on the right
8. Click the PRINT button to print it, or Add it to your Print Queue
9. Refresh the page using your browser’s refresh button to generate a brand new puzzle

Maze

The maze isn’t grocery-themed, but it’s fun! If your kids enjoy the free one in this packet, you can generate as many more as you want using The Trip Clip website. Here’s how:

Unlimited Mazes

Grocery List Letter Tracing

For some extra learning and handwriting practice, make a traceable grocery list for your kids! Learn more here:

Week 43: Practice Writing at the Grocery Store

Grocery List in Spanish (or any language)

You can sneak is some foreign language practice by writing your list in any language you want! The free packet contains a list in Spanish, but you can make it in Chinese, or French, or any language you want!

All you need to do is make a list, then click the text next to the picture and type in any language you want. You can read more about all the features of the picture lists here.

You can also use many other activities from The Trip Clip in languages other than English. You can make a bingo board in any language, a word search puzzle in any language, letter tracing in most languages, secret message puzzles in most languages, and a count it game in any language. See examples of all of this here.

Grocery Store Counting Game

The Trip Clip’s Count On It game turns any activity into a lesson in simple graphing and the scientific method!

Print the list, and then ask your kids to make predictions about which items they will see the most and the least often, and why (their hypothesis). While you’re shopping, have them fill in a box each time they see one of the items on the list (data collection).

When you’re done shopping, use the graph they made to see which item they saw most and least (results), and compare it with their predictions. Talk about what they learned (their conclusion), and emphasize that for scientists, the point isn’t to be right, it’s to run an experiment to find out if they were right.

For bonus points, talk about what experiment they might want to run the next time you’re at the grocery store. They can pick their own pictures for this to test their hypotheses.

Alphabet Game

The alphabet game is great for practicing first letter sounds and recognition, spelling, and handwriting. Have your kids find something in the grocery store that starts with each letter on the list. You can use the website to create a new random list of letters for each trip to the grocery store.

Grocery-Themed Secret Message Puzzle

Secret message puzzles (or cryptograms) are great for practicing problem solving, pattern recognition, and even beginning coding skills.

The free grocery packet has 1 cryptogram puzzle. You can make an unlimited number of additional grocery-themed puzzles using either stock puzzles by entering your own phrases to encrypt. You can also choose from 6 different difficulty levels. Here’s how:

1. Purchase the secret message activity on The Trip Clip website
2. From a desktop PC, go to the Activities page by clicking the menu item at the top of the page
3. Click the button for Secret Message
4. Choose your difficulty level on the left side of the screen
5. Select the radio button for “Enter my own secret message”
6. You can enter a question that will appear at the top of the puzzle, and a message that will be encrypted. This works well for riddles. For example:
   
   Question: Why don’t eggs tell jokes?
   Answer: They’ll crack each other up.

Once you have a preview, you can print it or add it to your print queue. You can also use your browser’s refresh button to generate a new puzzle.

Alphabet BINGO

Alphabet BINGO is fun in a lot of different scenarios, and the grocery store is definitely one of them. Read some ideas about how to use it here:

Week 46: Grocery Alphabet Bingo

Story Template

Have your kids pick something at the store to draw and describe. Who knows, it might inspire a reluctant writer to put pen to paper!