Shop game for kids

Children enjoy playing shop game where they set up some shop of household goods and play roles of customer and shop owner. Such game can be made more interesting and educative if we teach them to follow all procedures  done in actual shop.

It was revealed to me while playing with my 8 year old granddaughter Anusha,, who had just learned to  do simple arithmetic.

 Initially we set up a small collection of household goods on small desk and put up a signboard for shop Anusha Stores. I gave her a notebook and asked her to prepare alist of items in the shop and write price for each item. She liked the idea and prepared a list. We wrote prices for items with mutual consent.

Anusha Stores

Item List

No	Name	Price in Rs.
1	Ball	2
2	Pen	5
3	Ruler	1
4	Clock	10
5	Ponds Powder	8
6	Tooth Brush Set	6
7	Cell	3
8	Tester	8
9	Big Torch	9
10	Hand Torch	4

Now she became the shop owner and myself customer. When I asked her the price of some item, she has to find it out from list and tell me. After taking 2 or 3 items, she prepared a bill. I gave her small old bill book. She has to place carbon paper for duplicate copy, write bill number, date, my name, items with prices and she should add them to tell me total amount to be paid.

...................................................................................................................

ANUSHA STORES
Bill No. 1                                                                                                                 Date12-07-2015 Name - SURESH
No.	Item	Price
1	Pen	5
2	Cell	3
3	Hand Torch	4
	Total  Rs.	12

                                                                                                                                      Signature

.............................................................................................................

After I gave her money, she has to count and check the amount. Initially I used one rupee coins. But later, I changed it to coins of 1, 2, 5 Rupees. She was required to do subtraction for returning  excess amount.  

Anusha liked the game very much as she had to do reading, writing, addition and subtraction and gave her real life experience. We changed our roles and played this game for long time.

Next day I told her to assume many pieces of each item to be present in shop and asked her to prepare inventory list.

No	Name	Price in Rs.	Quantity	Total Rs.
1	Ball	2	5	10
2	Pen	5	10	50
3	Ruler	1	8	8
4	Clock	10	3	30
5	Ponds Powder	8	4	32
6	Tooth Brush Set	6	6	36
7	Cell	3	9	27
8	Tester	8	2	16
9	Big Torch	9	3	27
10	Hand Torch	4	4	16
			TOTAL Rs.	252

Now I can purchase more than one piece of each item and she has to prepare the bill by multiplying price and number of pieces.  This stage taught her use of multiplication.

At the end of  shopping, she has to  prepare inventory of remaining items and also sum up the money collected.

Then I told her how shop owner purchases items from big shop at low price and sells them at higher price. She now understood how shop owner gets profit.

All this knowledge was new to her but she leaned it easily while playing.

We elders, if spend time with kids in this way by playing games   by becoming their friend, we can teach them many things, which otherwise seem very difficult for them to understand.