letting math "happen"

I really need to learn to be okay with letting learning happen at times. Today was one of those days. We read a math book I got for Clara at the library (I can't remember the name, it was a Rosemary Wells book though... I'll post it tomorrow). In that book it suggested that you play "store"... pricing items, buying items, paying for them and making change. The kids really wanted to do this. So I told them after lunch if they got all of the seat work done before 2:00, they could play store.

Clara was done first so she set up the store. She made price tags with this cool punch I got from Fiskars (probably not the project they had in mind for it when they sent it to me...lol!). Once Alex was done with his work, they priced everything. They got the change bowl out... Clara put some in her metallic pink purse so she could shop and Alex kept some so he could make change.

A couple pics of Clara contemplating her purchases...

(the blue basket is her shopping basket)
Alex was selling Legos by the piece, so he's separating pieces so there's no misunderstanding over what Clara owes. :-)

They did really well... counting out money and making change. They did it several different ways.... sometimes Clara just picked out things and paid. Other times, I had her get out a dime and figure out what combination of things she wanted to get with that dime.

The reason I guess I'm saying that I have to let go and let math (or any other subject for that matter) just happen is that I get caught up in checking boxes in my teacher's guides instead of embracing some of these learning experiences. Yes, we didn't get to history today... but I'm hoping that through playing store they learned a little more about money and that they had fun doing it.