Practicing Math Skills At The Mall With My Little Diva

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I have a little Fashionista in my family.  We call her Fashion Diva Girl, and she loves all things FASHION. We’ve been working on math skills, and I needed a fun, cool way to get her thinking on her toes.  So, I came up with combining her love of shopping with math.  Finding new and fun ways to practice math skills will keep your little one interested in learning.

That’s right, make learning fun.  Take what your child enjoys and incorporate a bit of learning with it.  Just keep it low pressure cause you don’t want it to seem like a lesson and they shut down.

We are on Spring Break, and all my kids just want to lounge.  Well, all except Fashion Diva Girl.  She wants to relax and shop.  So, we headed out to Gymboree (great sale on Easter Dresses) and Children’s Place.  She found some cute outfits on sale.  SCORE!

After we had shopped, we headed to grab a little snack.  Auntie Anne’s was the stop.  That’s when I decided to practice this little exercise.  I wanted to do so as we shopped for clothes, but while standing at the register the cashier and I were chatting it up about other sales items.

As we stood in line at Auntie Anne’s, I had Fashion Diva Girl take a look at the board to find the price for the pretzels we were about to purchase.  Some simple questions asked:

Practice Math Skills With Simple Questions

• How much does each cost – she had to use reading skills here.  YES!
• Determine what we need to do?  Add, subtract, multiply, divide (is there a sale? Is it buy one get one free, etc?). Depending on the age and if the prices are the same for multiple items you can discuss multiplying vs. adding those items
• We then rounded the cost of each item – The idea was to have an estimate before the cashier gave us the total
• A quick discussion of which dollar amount we should use to pay.  Our total was $9.61.  I asked her if it made sense to pay with a $10 or $20. We also had a brief conversation on if it really mattered (this was after we walked away)

She quickly calculated that we should receive less than a dollar back.  The cashier thought it was cute and was excited about helping her with the change….$.39 she smiled, shouted and cheered my daughter on because she was able to tell me it was less than a dollar quickly.   Ohhhh…, but I wanted her to calculate the total.   No worries, though.  The quick math practice was fun and opened up a conversation between the teen cashier and my daughter about the importance of math.

As we walked away, Fashion Diva Girl grabbed my hand and said, “Mommy, that was fun!  The cashier was really nice and said I was good at math!”  SCORE!

It’s ok to have confirmation from others about the importance of education, especially when it’s someone your child can relate to, finds cool, etc.

If you can tie learning to a hobby or passion of your child (keep it low pressure), you will be able to get them to enjoy learning for years to come.

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