Teacher Introduction:

High school students rarely pay attention to the cost of food.  Many students help their families with the shopping, and can locate items in the grocery store, but know little about the costs of the food they eat.  Others have no idea where to find food items in the grocery store, and need help understanding the categorization of food by aisle. 

Vocabulary is important to grocery shopping.  Here are some words to review with students: 

aisle	checkout	dairy	receipt
per	seafood	pasta	produce
expiration date	percentage off	bakery	deli
condiments	canned goods	grains	household items
spices		baking goods

Students can download the grocery cost form and try to estimate the cost of each of the items at their family’s favorite grocery store.  The impact of this lesson is far greater when students complete an estimate of the costs of each item, then investigate the true costs of items either by going to the store independently and recording the costs of items, or investigating online at the sites below.  When the students have completed both their estimate and the true costs of food, they should compare the prices and complete the evaluation sheet.