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Teens at BCCS Children’s Education Center Build Lifelong Skills on Weekly Shopping Trips

A student at our Children’s Education Center learning lifelong skills while shopping at the storeOn Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Children’s Education Center students in the Transition Program head to Stop & Shop and BJ’s Wholesale Club for food shopping. They shop for various items ranging from sandwich ingredients and baked goods to laundry soap and lotion for role-playing exercises in the school’s model apartment.

Grocery shopping is part of the transitional curriculum taught to students 14 and over to prepare for independent living and adulthood. The items they purchase are mainly used to stock the school store and snack cart.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to work on so many skills at so many levels,” Transition Program Coordinator Patti Edwards said. “These skills include pedestrian safety, communication skills, working as part of a team, following directions, and more, all on top of learning actual shopping skills. Besides all that, about 99.9% of our students just love going to the store!”

Shopping starts at 9:30 a.m., when the school van departs with the students Transition Specialist Michele Ermmarino, their teacher and teacher assistants, and the shopping lists they created together in class. Grocery shopping takes up all morning because teachers are careful to give the students the time and space needed to take the lead. This helps students learn where the items are in every aisle and thoroughly go through their shopping lists.

After several trips, teachers can see the students becoming more confident with their shopping habits. They notice students going from shy and reserved to more outgoing in the stores. They ask more questions of staff, know where to find their typical items and are even more proactive at the self-check-out machine, wanting to complete the transactions on their own.

With newfound independence, students can decide whether they have all the ingredients necessary to fill pre-orders. For the school store, students take pre-orders for salads with dressing, various sandwiches like ham, turkey, and chicken salad, and snacks like chips, cookies, and coffee cakes. For the snack shop, the list requires that students check if they need to restock their pantry, or skip the ingredients they already have on hand, to create baked goods including muffins and brownies.

The teachers assist them in managing the inventory; this helps students work on their planning, organization, and deductive reasoning skills. Over time, these tasks, which may be challenging at the beginning, become second nature and will serve students throughout their life. With the added benefit of running the school store and snack cart, students will be better equipped to interact with the world outside of school.

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