Monday Math- Playing Store

Even though I have a kid that loves to do formal school work, there is no doubt about it that the BEST learning for kids comes from play and real life experiences. For today's math we set up a grocery store. Ryan's friend, S, was over and she loved the idea! I picked up some string tags at the dollar store, but you could just as easily make your own or even use masking tape. I went through the pantry and play food and picked ten items. Then I labeled them 1cent through 10 cents. While I was making the labels we talked about pennies, and the cent symbol.  I gave them each ten pennies in a cup (I figured the cup would be easier to manipulate than their play wallets, but I'll probably add the wallets next time). The kids loved choosing which items to buy and bringing them to me. The kids would count the money out to me, and then run back to find what else they had enough money for. S kept calling them moneys and Ryan kept saying dollars. I kept reminding them the correct words are pennies and cents. The kids didn't even realize that we were learning- they loved playing and got tons of practice counting, identifying numbers, and doing simple addition.