Greengrocers - fruit and vegetable role play
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Greengrocer Shop
If your topic includes the opportunity to have a greengrocers / farm/ garden shop in your role play area here are a few ideas and suggestions along with some printable resources to make the role play more realistic for your children.
There are a great many learning opportunities that surround a role play scenario you will find we have included a few of these under the individual headings.
Download the PDF
 Your Shop
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Have you an existing role play frame/wooden house that will serve as an enclosed area to have your shop? Other possibilities to create a shop area are...
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- Borrow/buy a large tent for the purpose.
- Purchase an open topped wooden play house.
- Cordon off a corner of your room with rope and then drape sheets over the rope to form ‘walls’ leave a space for the door.
- Put out an SOS for large cardboard boxes. Cut these open and paint to resemble the exterior of the shop you are planning for. Prop the boards up into your allocated shop area.
- Try to recreate as many physical elements of the real shop in your own role play one.
- Authenticity is very important when teaching our children how things operate, smell and look.
- Decorate your shop with pre made posters of the produce your have collected.
- Hang an ‘Open / closed’ sign outside the door.
- Have an opening times plaque.
- Display the fruits and vegetables in baskets or bowls on tables so that the children can clearly see what’s on offer!
- Hang aprons up for the ‘workers’ to keep their clothes clean – and for you to be able to quickly identify which children are in which role! – shop keepers or customers that way you can alternate the responsibilities.
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 Items you could include 
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- Old sacks – large Hessian ones (washed if necessary) would be great – roll up sheets of newspaper into balls and fill the sacks, tie off the top with string.
- Till & money
- Shopping baskets
- Note paper and pencils
- Telephone/computer & keyboard
- Paper bags to wrap produce in
- Fresh fruit – some examples are given below.
- Flowers – fresh or artificial, sheets of wrapping paper for them to be wrapped in once sold!
- Fresh vegetables – some examples are listed below,
- Seeds in packets
- Eggs in a basket – hard boil real eggs for the children to play with or make some from clay, plaster of paris poured into small balloons and left to set before cutting the balloon away, or baked salt dough.
- Make a scarecrow to decorate the shop
- Bowls or baskets to display the produce.
- Flower pots
- Gardening tools – hand trowel, fork, rake, dibber, string, hose, watering cans etc.
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Shopping/ Note Pad Paper
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Use these designs to help your children take notes on what they want to buy.
This is great for discussing likes and dislikes in regards to existing taste preferences Have a selection of fruits/vegetables ready to show the children to broaden their knowledge about the foods. Building on existing food preferences also examines the child’s willingness to experiment in buying /tasting unfamiliar foods.
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Click here for SHOPPING PAPER 1 SHOPPING PAPER 2
Planting
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An additional activity that can be included in a garden/farm shop role play is that of planting seeds and cuttings.
- Have a selection of terracotta plant pots (or plastic if necessary) pre –decorate these in a crafting session with a variety of collage materials and glue.
- Fill with soil and plant seeds or seedlings.
- Use emptied egg shells to plant cress on cotton wool – remember to keep it moist!
- Fill seed trays with soil and then plant small sprigs of fir/ or other shrubbery.
- Make miniature gardens with a variety of soil, seeds, foil for ponds, flower heads, grass and other leaves and twigs
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Seed Packets
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 Use this seed packet design to show the children differing types of seeds.
Cheap and easily grown seeds could include – Sunflower, Sweet pea, Nasturtium, Marigold, other types could be - Runner bean, Pea, Cress, Grass. Print and cut out as many seed packet templates as required.
Cut out the rectangle ‘window’ on the front of the packet
Place a few seeds onto a square of sticky back plastic or sticky tape and attach to the inside of the back cover.
Fold the packet in half so that the cut out section shows the seeds through.
Glue together the side and lower edge and fold the top flap over onto the back.
Cut out flower pictures that represent the seed from gardening magazines etc and stick to the front of the packet.
Write on how much the seeds are! Display and sell! |
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Click here for SEED PACKET TEMPLATE
Deliveries
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| Do you have some push along trolleys or small ride on bikes with trailers?
Use these if possible to organise deliveries – Fill out an order form with your ‘delivery driver’ then send them to the customer to unload!
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Getting things together
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If you wish to ask your parents/members to help with providing some of the resources for the shop use this letter to request help. To save on paper – pin the letter to your notice board and make everyone aware of it.
If you are going to have and use a large amount of fruit and vegetables in your shop, write the amount you will need next to that item – avoids overstocking!
Cross off the food items you do not want donated/loaned.
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**********************************************
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Dear Parents/ Carers
Our topic will soon be focusing on …………………
We are going to include a ........……………………
shop in the role play area and would love to have you join in this fun activity by helping us to provide a few items for the shop.
Please write your name next to the item you can loan or donate to us.
All donations need to be in on ____________________date
Thank you
Please label anything you wish us to return to you.
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-ITEM-----------------QTY--------NAME-------------------------------
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Coins
Use our Silkysteps currency to help your farm shop go with a swing.
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Click on the coins link
Print the coins.
Cut them all out.
Glue a front and back together.
Laminate or sticky back plastic.
Cut out again.
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Click here for Silkysteps COINS
Taste Testing
With such a variety of foods it would be a fantastic opportunity to have food tasting on offer to the children.
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If you intend to have adult help in the role play area maybe they could help supervise a ‘taste session’ similar to that of the ‘tasting kiosk’ encountered at the local shop!
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Turn it into guessing games – have a plateful of chopped up fruit that the children then have to match to the whole fruit.
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Can they distinguish between sweet and sour? Hard and soft?
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Look at the patterns and seeds the inside of the fruits have. Maybe you could collect and plant the seeds and later make still life drawings of the patterned centres.
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