Grocery Store Bingo . Activities . Grades 1 & 2 . Early Math . PBS Parents

Grocery Store Bingo

Adding a math twist to the classic Bingo game equals
F-U-N on your next trip to the grocery store!

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To create a bingo card, fold a piece of paper in half. Then fold it in half again. Repeat until you have 16 squares. This will be a bingo card. Repeat step one twice to make two more cards.
Look through several grocery store flyers for math-related prices and sale items you can use to fill two of the cards. For example, you might cut out '3 for $1' from a flyer and paste it to one square, cut and paste 'Buy 1/Get 1 FREE' to another, a picture of a container shaped like a cylinder pasted on another, and so forth until the card is filled. Here are some additional ideas: a picture of a dozen eggs, a 1-gallon container of something, a 5-pound bag of something, etc.
On your next shopping trip, bring your two cards with you. Invite your child to play Bingo with you as you grocery shop. Bring a marker for each of you to mark your cards with.
As you walk through the aisles, encourage your child to look for the items on the card. When an item is spotted, mark it with an X in the appropriate box. The first to get four items in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally wins BINGO!.
Help your child to fill out the third blank card for your next shopping trip.

This activity helps develop your child's ability to match and read numbers and money amounts and to become familiar with the way foods are priced and packaged in the store.
Talk about the different geometric shapes, the pricing, and different ways items are packaged as you mark them on your cards. For example, "You found 1 dozen! How many are in a dozen?" Or, "You found that can! What do we call this can shape?" (Cylinder.)