Sunday, September 28, 2008

Pet Store Math

A little while ago I purchased a neat bit of math called Your Business Math: Pet Store  for Catherine. It seemed right up her alley with the pet store theme and since orders have to be placed, stock has to be marked up and bills have to be paid it looked like a great way for her to practice arithmatic, decimals and percents.  It's seems I was right too because when she heard about it her eyes lit up.

 The first thing she was supposed to do was design her logo. After some doodling and ideas this fell by the wayside in favour of ordering stock. Today she sat down and finished it and the result is pretty damn nice.



I admit I helped her but it was mostly in the advice department. We did mock-ups and discussed colour and text placement and when the time came I penciled in the name. But the design was hers, drawings were done by her, the colour choice was hers and the clever name was hers.

BTW, many thanks to Traveling Jews where I not only learned about Your Business Math but also first heard of Life of Fred and Ellen McHenry's The Elements. It's a most excellent blog with tons of creative homeschooling ideas that I plan to steal enmasse. Thank you Travelling Jews!

10 comments:

Jacqueline said...

That is so cool! It really sounds like a neat program

Anonymous said...

Your "Traveling Jews" link goes to the Simply Charlotte Mason website for Your Business Math. I'd love to check out the Traveling Jews blog if you wouldn't mind fixing the link.

l said...

My dd "Fairy" also does that same Pet Store business math and she loves it. Even though they are starting public school tomorrow, she wants to keep "running" her store!

Dawn said...

Link fixed Rose, thanks for letting me know!

Alex - Yup. It's funny how a little fantasy can inject so much fun into the math. :D

molytail said...

Hey that's awesome! Love it! :-)

Ruth in NC said...

Thanks for the compliment.

Hope you continue to enjoy Pet Store and Fred. We are really trying to get outside the box in math this year and it seems to be working.

Ruth in NC

Unknown said...

My kiddos love Pay Day, so they would probably enjoy this, too. Thanks for sharing.

Alison Kerr said...

Pets are big around here too. What a fun idea!

Dana Leeds said...

I see this is an old post, but I'll be teaching Pet Store math in a co-op next year. (The kids will actually get to choose between the 3.) I found your blog while googling for it.

Anyway, it's funny - you also mention Life of Fred and Ellen J McHenry's Basement - we're getting ready to use both of those!

Dana

Dana Leeds said...

Hi! We are getting ready to use Pet Store Math this year (and The Elements AND Life of Fred!!!). I had a start-up question. I'm a little concerned about buying start up inventory. Did you give your child any direction?

I'll be teaching a co-op, so I might have students using all 3 types of stores. I'm just worried that they might buy way too much or too little of certain items. It seems like they should have some direction. Just wondering what you did.

Thanks!