shopping trip scavenger hunt :: keep your littles entertained while running errands

Confession time…my family was approximately one snow storm away from starving. True story. If we had suddenly gotten snowed in, we may have had to consider busting into the dog food stash, and the fur babies were running quite low on their food supply, as well. Our cupboards were bare!

My one big area of mom guilt, the thing that every other mom I know seems to always nail, with a giant smile on her face, is meal planning and grocery shopping. Less the meal planning part, I can handle that sort of okay, it’s really the grocery shopping gig where things all seem to fall apart. I absolutely loathe grocery shopping. Why? Because I’m generally accompanied by three mini “helpers.” Now, I know some of you are thinking, ‘but Sarah, don’t you homeschool? You’re supposed to love being with your kids every hour of the day. You realized when you signed up to educate your children, that you wouldn’t get the hours they could be in school to stock your pantry, right?’ Yeah, I know that’s how it seems, but the truth is my kids drive me to crazy town every now and again, just like any other kids. It also means I don’t get to go grocery shopping by myself…ever.

It’s not even that my kids are particularly naughty in the store. They’re really quite well behaved. But, they are children. They tend to fall into boredom at warp speed once we’re through the automatic doors. Actually, I’m slightly suspicious of those seemingly magic doors that open by themselves…I’m beginning to wonder if they run on the attention spans of young shoppers…like, there’s some sort of magnetic pull or something that sucks kids’ ability to keep from going bonkers for longer than a fraction of a second…no? Come on. I think I might actually be on to something…

Anyway, it doesn’t take long before my kids find that poking and annoying each other, and thus me, is much more fun than sitting still and enjoying the sights of the store. Clearly, they haven’t developed a taste for people watching yet… So the cycle of boredom continues, and pretty soon, one of the younger two starting panicking with the typical “I gotta go potty!” line. Chances are, they’re fine, because we were just in there, and they only want to play with the automatic hand driers. Sigh. Off to the bathroom we go…again. Once out, the kids really start getting on each others nerves, and my ADD brain can’t think fast enough to get the items I need, let alone make choices about sale items that will save our family money. As my kids are going ape on one another, I tend to rush through the rest of the isles, chucking random things in our cart, instead of shopping smart. It’s pure chaos, my blood pressure skyrockets, and I end up missing half of the items on my list, thus messing up my entire meal plan for the week…all before we have made it through the checkout line.

Enough is enough, right? I’ve decided this madness has got to stop! Today, as we headed to the store, I had some tricks up my sleeve in hopes of keeping my minions occupied enough to make it through our shopping trip with a fraction of my sanity still in tact, and a pantry full of groceries when we got home. Enter, the shopping trip scavenger hunt! In a moment of desperation, or sheer mommy genius, I put together this little game for my kiddos to keep them entertained while we run our errands. Yes, it’s one more step to the shopping process, but the reality is, I can deal with happy kid chatter. It’s when we’re on the brink of disrupting the entire store with our chaos, that I can’t think straight. The goal with this is happy kids! And today, happy kids is what I got!

I could be the only mom out there who looks at grocery shopping as a major chore, but if not, maybe this little game will also help you get your shopping done with happy kids and a bit of remaining sanity. Check out this free printable, and the next time you’re at the store, bring along a clipboard and let the scavenger hunt begin.

Do you enjoy shopping with the little ones in your life? What are some ways you keep your kids occupied while at the grocery store?