Wal-mart Lesson

I held off going grocery shopping as long as possible but with the upcoming snow storm for tomorrow I had to head out tonight and get 2 of the 4 stores done. The majority of the shopping is now done. I have less than 10 things to get at each of the remaining 2 stores.

Jessica got $20 from my father's fiance for her birthday last month. She has just been holding on to it. Sunday night Jessie blessed me and gave me a foot rub and painted my toe nails. She was having a hard time with the nail polish. A lot of it was old and getting dried out. She was telling me how she would like new polish. I told her she could use her money to buy new polish and I would bring her to the store to get it.

Little did I know that to her that meant "the next time I go out, I will bring you." But in her 8 year old mind that is exactly what she thought. It was about 7:30 this evening and I was finishing up my grocery list. She came in my room and pulled her list out of her pocket book. She actually made a list of all the colors she wanted. She was telling me how excited she was to be getting her polish. At that point, even though I would have loved to have some quiet time to myself I brought her with me.

Jessie was a big helper in the store getting whatever I needed. We chatted. We laughed. The excitement was building as we made our way through the store and over to the nail polish. FINALLY we were standing in front of 20 different colors. Jessie, being the mini-me that she is, then got her list out and went one by one to find each and every color. It was fun to watch her think through her decisions (like which shade of blue to get). We added up how much she was spending as we went along. It was great!!!

This one shopping trip gave us an opportunity to use math (adding up the prices. subtracting it from what she had), reasoning (in another store she saw a pocket book she liked and she had to think through spending her money), decision making (deciding colors, what to buy, how many) and communication (talking to the cashier. Giving the cashier the money, getting back the change. using manners). All skills she is going to use in the real world some day.

So do you think I can count this as a homeschool day : ) kidding....just kidding ; )