Shop 'til you drop

Try some of the following ideas:

* Electronic scales: use digital kitchen scales to weigh goods.

* Phone orders: use an audio cassette player to record phone orders. This will act like an answer phone - the children can listen to the messages and pre-pack orders ready for collection. Children could also record replies, such as 'Mrs Jones, your order is ready for collection.'

* The checkout: set up an old monitor and keyboard or, if you can spare it, use a working computer system. All computers have a basic text editor, for example, Notepad on PCs, which children could explore to create orders. If you have a word processing programme that has a pictorial word bank, for example, Clicker or Talking First Word, then children could create pictorial receipts. Download the free My World coins screen from the Association of Teachers of Mathematics website. Show children how to print their work and encourage them to do this independently. Alternatively, provide a collection of printed till receipts or use a till roll for the children to write their own receipts. Include a calculator so the children can work out costs.