Young children enjoy acting out scenarios that are familiar to them: shopping is one of them. Some will enjoy preparing for a trip to the shops - filling up a handbag with purse, keys, store cards and telephone before darting off with a baby doll in the buggy. Others like to spend time setting up the grocery store, organising the boxes and the produce before hanging out the 'Open' sign. And some children will enjoy playing the role of shopkeeper, feeling in control as they direct customers to the cereal aisle or calling for assistance on the tannoy of the electric cash register.
Shopping role play stimulates both children's imagination and social development. It is good for language skills and problem-solving, and provides countless opportunities to explore maths. A well-equipped home corner and outdoor area containing resources that children can use to set up shop is vital if we are to support this area of children's play.
CORE COLLECTION
A collection of shopping resources should feature in your continuous (everyday) provision. When deciding which products to buy for the younger age group, choose resources that are easily recognisable so that children can immediately get involved and start playing with them. For example, staff at Mayfield Kindergarten in Ilfracombe, Devon, collect empty food boxes for children to use in the home corner for shopping role play, cooking and playing cafes.
Gillian Livings, proprietor, says, 'We use open-ended resources that are easily replenished. We have a collection of empty mini and large cereal boxes, packets of rusks, breadsticks and tubs of Bisto granules so that they see the same things - of the same size - that they find in supermarkets. Children respond better to these resources than the pre-bought packs of miniature boxes which are usually squashed within minutes.'
When choosing the produce to go on the market stall, some settings go for real fruit and vegetables, and others use plastic or wooden versions.
Linda Keats, a workforce development consultant for Essex Early Years and Childcare, endorses the use of food in exploratory activities - examining the different fruits of the world or fish being brought into nursery to see, smell and feel.
But she insists that there is no need to use real food as a 'play-and-throw' resource.
She explains, 'There are many alternative sensory experiences available and it is essential to educate children early regarding this fragile resource. I prefer to use recycled or natural materials - pine cones, sand, corks, strips of plastic tube cut into sausages and thin tubes as spaghetti in the home corner.'
Here are some points to consider when building up a core collection:
- Provide a large collection of fruits and vegetables that children can use in their market stall or grocery store. Try the Veggie Basket Set, £13.99, scale-sized rubberwood vegetables in a wooden crate, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk or the Just Like Home 150 Piece Play Food Set and Trolley from www.toysrus.co.uk. For a complete 114-piece wooden set of fruit, bread, meat, fish, cakes, and utensils, priced at £130, go to www.earlyyearsdirect.com.
Shopping trolleys are an ideal way to carry around food during role play - among those available is the Shopping Trolley, £13.49, which comes with food boxes and a deposit key in the handle from www.earlyyears.co.uk. And the Wicker Shopping Trolley, £36.00, (available from September 2012), from www.mindstretchers.co.uk. For a trolley that children can use to carry around a 'baby' or a teddy, there's the Child Sized Trolley, £29.99, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk. Or, try the robust Wooden Shopping Cart, £42.95, from www.tts-group.co.uk.
- Provide a large collection of shopping resources for the under-threes because it's very difficult for this age group to share.
- Avoid plastic shopping bags. Instead, go for paper bags or try the 10 Net Bags, £16.80, or the set of six rubber-backed Jute Bags, £12, great for use indoors and outside, from www.mindstretchers.co.uk. Also available is a set of five plastic shopping baskets, £13.99, from www.tts-group.co.uk. Cosy Direct (01332 370152) sells a set of six wicker Ellie Baskets for £9.95.
Create a shop front in the home corner. This could sell groceries, shoes, petrol or teddies. Clear the shelves or a table and let the children set out the stock or buy a ready-made shop counter like the Toy Shop 'Nature', £95, or the Wonder Store, £89.95, which has a counter and two shelves, allowing a variety of items to be displayed, both from Cosy Direct. Or, go for the Market Stall, £159.99, supplied with six cubby bins and manufactured from strengthened tubular plastic, from www.earlyyears.co.uk. Provide scales for the children to weigh the fruit and vegetables, such as the Easy to Use Balance, £12.00, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk.
Outdoors, invest in a role-play structure that will withstand the rigours of our weather. Try the Outdoor Shop, £249.95, with a mini chalkboard, from www.tts-group.co.uk. Or, for a more temporary solution, let children create their own farmers market with some poles and a Market Stall Tarp, £10.95, (2.7 x 3.5m), from Cosy Direct. Or, if you get your hands on some boxes, help children to create their own market stall by stacking up the boxes.
- Busy shopkeepers and traders need somewhere to store their money. The set of six Writers' Bumbags, £18, from Cosy Direct would be a great place to keep loose change while keeping their hands free to pack goods. Children will enjoy weighing their goods and paying for them with the wooden Scales And Register Combo, £36.95, from www.tts-group.co.uk. The till has a calculator and roll with a slide-out drawer. The Just Like Home Cash Register, £14.99, from www.toysrus.co.uk, has an electronic display, calculator and checkout belt with scanner and slot for credit card transactions. Or, try the Calculator Cash Register, £27.99, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk, which features a solar-powered calculator, activity guide for early years, play credit card and money set.
Don't forget to provide resources for children to role play shopping in small-world play. Help children create quintessential British villages with local shops by using the set of seven wooden High Street Buildings, £29.95, from www.tts-group.co.uk. Alternatively, use the Real Life - Community Places, £14.95, a set of photographic shops, with Real Life Families, £12.95, to create narratives based on everyday experiences of visiting the Post Office or going to the corner shop. Both available from Cosy Direct.
- Provide lots of handbags and purses and wallets so that children have everything they need to go to the shops. Some settings bring in two pence coins because the children like the weight of the money in their hands. Or, try the Assorted Money, £17.95, a set of 80 play notes and 140 coins of each denomination up to £1, from www.tts-group.co.uk. Or provide scissors, paper and pens and let the children make their own notes.
- Nothing compares to the real experience of visiting the shops, so take children out in small groups to buy bread or ingredients for baking.
SUPPORTING RESOURCES
Children beyond the age of three can use their imaginations to transform open-ended resources. It is, therefore, vital to have materials to hand that enable children to create their own play scenarios. Stones or twigs may become money and the wooden block that they put in the fridge may be a slab of butter or a pint of milk. Older children might also like to role play other types of shops, depending on their experiences - for example, shoe shops, flower shops, or hairdressers.
Gillian Livings says, 'We sometimes bring in different types of shoes from home - big wellies, small wellies, flip-flops, lace-ups, Velcros - to set up a special shoe shop. We have fun swapping shoes and we look at numbers to see what size shoes people have got.'
BOOK CORNER
There are quite a few picture book classics about shopping, among them:
- The Shopping Basket by John Burningham (Red Fox)
- Don't Forget the Bacon by Pat Hutchins (Red Fox)
- Going Shopping by Sarah Garland (Frances Lincoln)
- When We Go Shopping by Nick Butterworth (HarperCollins)
- Market Day by Lois Ehlert (Voyager Paperbacks)
- My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone and Christopher Corr (Barefoot Books)
BEST BUY
For Angela Green, manager at Child First Northampton Nursery, the Rokka Kitchen accessories pack, £95, has been an invaluable resource for the home corner. The pack combines with the central Rokka unit, £250, an innovative piece of role-play equipment, which can be transformed into a boat, theatre and more.
Angela says, 'It is part of our continuous provision - children sell teddies, pick vegetables from the garden and sell them and we've even put it in Reception and set it up as a flower stall selling Marie Curie Pots of Hope to parents. The children get so much out of it - and it can also become a theatre or a boat.' Available at www.rokkaplay.com.