Fun Math similar to Your Business Math by SCM

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to share something I came across this weekend and started today with some of my kiddos.  If you’ve ever looked at SCM’s Your Business Math you may like this.  We have the Your Business Math Pet Store version and love it, but currently none of my kids are ready for all the math involved in it (oldest has already done it, next few kids aren’t ready for percents).  So I was looking for something similar: creating your own store/place and doing the math involved for running it, but with less advanced math needed.  The kids need something ‘fun’ to do to keep up math skills in some form during our baby break that will start any day now when baby Tobias is born.  🙂

I found two options on the Teachers Pay Teachers site.  One is just right for my 2nd grader (only addition and subtraction) while the other works for my 4th and 5th graders (add, subtract, and multiplication).

Wild Animal Park is aimed at 2nd and 3rd graders and is a mix of math and writing/research.  So for day 1 Daniel and I researched a habitat (rainforest) to see what animals/plants we might find there.  Then he pulled out the order form and ordered some animals and food for the rainforest section of what will be a 5 habitat animal park when we’re done.  He had to decide how many animals to get, add up the costs, and subtract from his starting money for that habitat ($500).  The next day we’ll design a habitat on paper.  Then he’ll make the next habitat, and the next, following the same basic steps (learn about it, choose animals, design the habitat on paper).  Once he has all 5 habitats ready we’ll open his park.(Technically, we can open with just 1 habitat, and we may, the original plans have 5 groups making 1 habitat each).  Then we have 20 days worth of cards that tell him what happened at the park that day (ticket sales, vet bills, snack sales, etc).  He’ll add income, subtract what was spent, etc, and see what happens to his park over the month.  There are optional writing activities like making a park brochure or a report on a habitat.   Cost for this download was $7.

Zoo Keeper Math Project is aimed at 3rd-6th grades.  It is similar in some ways to the other, but lacks the habitat research.  Instead kids get a startup of $20,000 and they order animals, fencing, optional attractions (like a snack shop or a train ride), caretakers, and so on.  These tasks are divided up over different days and each day you have multiplication to do to figure out how much you are spending (ex: 3 lions at $250 each or 56 yds. of fencing at $5/yd).  You add to find the subtotal for that day’s section.  Then you make your zoo on paper, designing in on graph paper (printable) and you open the zoo.  This one has you choose to start a small, medium, or large zoo (more animals=bigger zoo).  Then there are 8 days of cards for each size zoo that give them ticket sales to figure, income, expenses, etc.  (Note, this is less than the other kit, which had 20 days worth, but you could easily come up with new numbers for more ‘days’ or have your child make a small zoo, then a medium zoo, then a large zoo).  Cost for this download was $6.50.