Go Shopping for Decimal Practice!

Looking for a way to make math matter to your fifth grader? Here's an activity that will get your child's attention with a back-to-school shopping spree. The catch? He'll have to use decimal skills to add, subtract, multiply, and divide his way to a new wardrobe! This activity can easily be substituted with restaurant take-out menus, grocery coupons, or any kind of catalog, for year-round math practice that will add up!

• Your child's favorite clothing catalogs
• Pencil
• Paper
   

What You Do:

• Read through the catalogs together with your child. Point out items you know your child will like and build up the excitement about the things that are on sale.

• Tell your child that he can shop for his own clothes this year, but only if he stays within a certain budget. Give him the number that represents the limit of his budget, and tell him to get calculatin'! He'll need to use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to get the most out of his back to school budget.

Addition
To add up the items that he is considering buying, your child should line up all the decimal points in order to correctly compute the total cost. For example:

  $29.99
  $45.00
+$14.99
  $89.98
 

Subtraction
To find out how much money is still left in the budget, your child will have to subtract what he has already planned to spend from the total budget. As with addition, he should first line up the decimal points before solving the subtraction problem. For example:

 $100.00
- $89.98
  $10.02