Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 28, 1992 TAG: 9202280352
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
BETHEL KIDS LEARN HOW TO SHOP DURING NO-JUNK GROCERY JUNKET
If you let 23 first-graders loose in a Food Lion supermarket and each one has 99 cents to blow, what would you expect the majority of them to buy?Candy bars, bubble gum, ice cream, Kool-Aid, right?
After a flurry of confusion, a lot of noise and a few spilled spaghetti noodles, the first-graders from Bethel Elementary School left the supermarket Monday with no junk food. Instead, their bags contained bananas, cheese, tomato sauce, ground turkey, ground beef, orange juice, spaghetti and other good-for-you stuff.
Since the beginning of the school year, Barbara Langford has been teaching her pupils about the importance of reading in the everyday world - such as when you go to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of 2 percent milk.
And she's taught them how to count money and receive change - just as it's done in a grocery store.
The class also studied the four food groups and learned what kinds of foods are healthful - such as bananas, cheese, tomato sauce, pasta and orange juice.
So what better place to test her pupils on what they've learned than in a grocery store?
"I wanted the children to learn that there really is a reason for learning all this," said Langford, who has been at Bethel Elementary for eight years and taught first grade for two. "Hopefully, they've learned life skills, things they'll really need to know."
The trip started with a tour of the Food Lion store at Tyler's Square shopping center. The children saw every part of the store, front and back. They even got to go into one of the Food Lion trucks.
Then they split into five groups to look for the items on their grocery lists. Each child had 99 cents and was responsible for counting out the money at the cash registers.
"I like where they store the ice cream," said Violet Lyons, 7. "And the room where they make hamburger is neat."
Said Stacy Hubbard, 6: "I didn't know there was three coolers in the store, but there are."
Bethany Atallah, 7, was busy counting her money for the tomato sauce she was responsible for buying.
"It's 33 cents. I've got a quarter, three pennies and five cents [a nickel]," she said.
"I liked going inside the truck the best," said Travis Honaker, 7. "And I learned that you have to know how to count money so you can buy things and get the right change back."
Langford said the trip to the grocery store wasn't the end of the children's work. They will write about their trip and then read what they've written to the class.
But Langford is saving the best part for last.
"I've always loved cooking, and we do a lot of cooking in the class," she said. "So we'll take all the food we bought and make lunch. The children will learn about measurements and how to read recipes while they do that."
"Making lunch will be fun," said Jennifer Mans, 7. "We're going to make spaghetti."