Want your 8-year-old to have fun building math skills?  

 

Make it FUN for him, says Patricia Clark Kenschaft, Ph.D., author of Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math.  Don’t schedule daily half-hour drills which will turn him off fast, but find ways to make it fun … Like, let him play store!

Playing Store

Create a pretend store with some of his favorite things.  He can help you arrange the items on your cleared off kitchen table.  Let him select the “price” of certain items and put price cards on each thing (using index cards works great).  Give him a budget and some play money or real money (in which case you keep the price of things way, way down!).  Challenge him to stay within his budget while shopping. Take turns being the cashier.