My kids like to pretend to buy and sell toys from each other. It’s a good way to practice counting money and composing and decomposing tens. toy shop The first time we played, Bryan chose objects to give to Heidi that Peter wanted, and chose objects to give to Peter that Heidi wanted.

This time, I helped Elsa- I mean, Heidi, set the price of her toys with Base 10 blocks, then she wrote them on little sticky notes with room only for one number. Once, I went back to a toy we had set the price for already, and said, “No, we really like this. Let’s make this more expensive.” And then added so many ones that she would have to compose a ten before writing it down.

We also wrote up a list of the toys and prices, just for extra writing practice.

Then Captain America- I mean Peter- came in with pennies and dimes to buy the toys.