Once we’d made our pumpkin puree, it was time to get the other ingredients to bake cookies forFarmer Appreciation Day. As a reading and writing activity, we reread the recipes we’d selected and wrote a list of ingredients we would need. There were some leftover supplies from previous projects, so next, students went through the supplies and created a shorter list of groceries they’d need to buy.
On Friday, we went grocery shopping. We walked to the local Co-op grocery store and worked together to pick out and purchase the items on our list. Everyone had a job to do. Some important jobs included: grocery list readers, cart pushers, cart loaders and grocery carriers. I think it’s really important for all students to have a purpose and a job that contributes to the task, so I made sure students knew their jobs and my behavior expectations before we left our school. Once we were at the store, each student took turns doing their part of the shopping. We stopped a few times to work together as a group: we compared prices on a couple of products together and we checked our cart together to make sure we had everything that we needed for our cookies.
It might seem a little crazy to take 15 kids grocery shopping, but truthfully, it went very smoothly. Everyone was focused on our end goal of making cookies for the farmers and they easily met my high expectations for how to behave at the grocery store. (I suppose that’s another reason why project based learning is so valuable – students are engaged and willing to work together on tasks that have a real purpose for them.) I was really proud of my class for their teamwork and best behavior! Way to go Grade 1s! 
