If your house is like mine, trips to the grocery store with small children can be an adventure, sometimes in good ways, sometimes not. Here are some activities that can take some of the stress out of this task and build early-literacy skills at the same time.

Cut out pictures of some of the things you will be buying, and have your toddlers make a colorful grocery list. You can write the names of the items next to the grocery list.

If your preschoolers or kindergartners are learning to write letters, help them to write out the list for the day.

As you put the items into the shopping cart, allow your children to be the keepers of the list. Let them check off the items and add new items that are not on the list.

And as always have a couple of books handy to read together while waiting in the checkout line.