Market- Imaginary Play

EMAIL THIS LETTER TO MEMBERS HELPING WITH SETUP

Greetings,
Its time turn the Dramatic Play Center into a Grocery Store for everyone to enjoy! The following items and ideas are available for you to go over so we can create the Best LPPP Market ever.

Everyone- This Month, we begin by asking you to start gathering empty containers that we will use for our “products” within the Super Market. Keep those cereal and cracker boxes!
*Clean them out fill them with newspaper and use packing tape around the edges to seal those packages so that they are durable for the duration of our supermarket theme.
*Wash out and seal those empty plastic applesauce, juice and milk containers and seal the lids with some hot glue!
* Any kind of container is fine, so long as it is clean and sealed (mostly to keep that yucky, food-tainted water from dripping all over the place).
* Also, please don’t bring any containers that once held a food item with nuts! We don’t want to take any chances of nut-product residue aggravating serious allergies.
* If each of you could accumulate 1-2 garbage bags full of empty, sealed product containers by the time of the Super Market set up, that would be great!
** Also, everyone please choose EITHER Part A OR Part B to work on. Email me back with your selection, and please also let me also know your applicable skill sets (sewing, crafting, drawing, painting, building, engineering, handy with tools, sign making, etc.) for future themes. Thank you!

Part A (Food): We often need additional and replacement food items. This year, we need more “meat”, "produce” and larger “baked goods", which can be fashioned out of felt, yarn, foam, construction paper, cardboard, etc. Here is a list of easy tutorials. We only ask that your creations are made with the safety of the children in mind--no pointy or sharp edges, and pieces should be bigger than the middle of a toilet paper roll in the few first months of the school year, when some of our 2-day kids are still pretty young and sometimes still put things in their mouths. Your creations should also be able to withstand the children’s abuse for at least the duration of the month. Please consider this when you construct parts and pieces. More durable, well-made food products are appreciated, as we can re-use them in the future. Those with sewing or crafting skills would be ideal for this project.

Part B (Signage): Typically, we plastic-cover signs and affix them with zip-ties to the fronts of the shelves to designate areas like “frozen foods”, “dairy”, “eggs”, “meat”, “cereal”, “crackers”, “baked goods” “produce” and “baking needs”. These signs become damaged, and new signs need to be fashioned. Those who can use the computer deftly to create signs with both text and pictures of each word underneath to help the children identify different sections, would be ideal for this project.

Set Up: All of you will work on set up. Some of you will assemble our wire shelves and place them under the loft, against the back wall. These will be the shelves of our market, and will hold the majority of the food. Some of you will organize and stock shelves. Some of you will set up a produce stand, bakery area and deli. Your Lead will help delegate everyone to a task during set ups. Please find some photos of a past Super Market and select items, to give you an idea of what we’re looking for with regard to food production, signage and set up.

Take Down: You will all take down the Super Market. You will return furniture and items to their original places and recreate the original “kitchen/house” environment.

School/ Teacher Barbara has:

• Cash Registers
• Plastic Fruit and Veggies
• Shelves
*some felt fruits and veggies
* Play Money
* Shopping Carts
* Customer Order Dividers
*Some felt bakery items

Try to get Donations of the following from Local stores
• Old Displays (ask on Wednesdays many displays are changed out and disposed of with the new sale ads )
Some Tips for the Grocery Store * Use a black trash bag or black fabric taped down to create a "conveyor belt" 
***Two registers TWO LANES- use two tables one by each Register- Per TB****
* Grocery Weekly ads and coupons- save from Sunday paper etc
• Have paper and pens set out for children to make Grocery lists
• Freezer section: Use a clear shower curtain liner cut it to the right length cut strips attach under loft.

Setup:
*Produce Stand, Delicatessen, Freezer Section, and Bakery should all be addressed
* Optional- Flower Stand--- Ask Walmart for Silk Flower Donations.
• Anything else you can think of?

Our Flower Stand Go Here for step by step instructions on how to make one.

Go Here for the Donations letter for the Market of basic items needed remember you can always add to it as needed. Simply Copy and Paste into a Word Document (change Font size as needed)Include the Base Donations Letter along with the specific Donations Letter for the unit you are working on

Please “REPLY TO ALL” and keep me in the loop with all emails so I can stay up to date with your progress and ideas.



This thing is awesome anyone have any ideas as to how to recreate it? It is supposed to be strictly for a Kids Bakery Display Case, from the 'Designs by Sara' collection, 42''w x 24''d. Includes an unbreakable Lexan® display window, 3 shelves & locking sliding doors in the back. Top & shelves have a brush orange laminate.
Here is a link to the site where I found it

We sectioned the food into categories we kept all the dairy/ eggs together breakfast stuff together etc.

Above is a picture from the year before so you can see while they are different there are some similarities.

I used a trash bag as the "conveyor belt" and used the bottom of the shower curtain that we weren't using to cover the whole table so I wouldn't have to tape directly to our table it sealed in the trash bag and I taped the shower curtain to itself so we won't have any yucky tape residue.

Our market, the "next customer" signs are cardboard covered in masking tape rolled into a long triangle shape with the words written on in sharpie

 

 Aprons and Job Badges for children who are "Working"

 Our Produce Section

 We used tubs where the children will color code the fruit and veggies

 The fruit and veggies were 90% hand made

This year we added a Cocoa shop to our super market.

 

You can make turkey/chicken legs and we had meat trays donated we sealed them up and placed them in the freezer section.

 

Our freezer section we saved an assortment of frozen tv dinners etc
I used a shower curtain and cut it to size for the freezer section I also cut strips it into strips so the kids could easily reach in and pull out what they want

We made fish bacon and more drumsticks

Fresh pasta in the refrigerated section

Make labels on the computer

Ground Meat is easy to make with yarn and sushi was made with felt

Again you can get creative using simple yarn and a baggie.

This was the bakery this year but there is a photo above of the bakery in previous years.

Easy cupcakes, cookies, and even a cake for the kids to choose from

Some were packaged on plastic lids with some of the scrap shower curtain taped on top.

Buying in bulk

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Delicatessen

Use felt or foam to create bread, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and meat. Have Baggies ready for the kids so after they create their sandwich they can take it to go.

 

This is the Delicatessen made in another year. Slightly different but mainly the same.

We used signs to indicate where everything is

We used a Mailbox to house our sale ads we have been collecting
We put out paper and pencils for "Make your own Shopping Lists"