COLLECT BUTTONS

When Becky Trudgen of Merrill, Michigan, was a little girl, she loved the look and feel of her mother's button collection. Not surprisingly, when she had kids of her own, she started saving buttons for them in a glass jar. On rainy days, Beth, nine, and Bryan, six, spill their collection onto the floor. (They have about 100 so far.) As they sort colors and shapes, they naturally count, add, subtract and estimate. The activity reinforces the skills they're learning in school. "We've had the button jar since Beth was four, and they've never grown bored with it," says Becky.

GO ON A TREASURE HUNT

Maribeth Knierim knows few things appeal to a grade-schooler's sense of adventure more than a treasure hunt. When she hands her sons, Austin, nine, and Max, five, one of her maps, they scour their Mokena, Illinois, yard, solving puzzles with the tenacity of swashbucklers. A typical chart might read:

A. Start at the porch facing north.
B. Take 4 x 5 steps.
C. Turn left and jump 8 + 46 times.
D. Face west and skip 6 x 2 times.
E. Look under the rock marked X.

Sometimes the boys discover chocolate coins, but mostly, Maribeth says, they have a good time learning to add, multiply and follow directions. "Some days we'll have every kid in the neighborhood over," she adds, "and they'll say, 'You do the most fun stuff.' That makes it all worth it."

LEARN SUMS ON THE SIDEWALK

When her son Joshua was learning his multiplication tables, Robin Monk, a student teacher in Texarkana, Arkansas, put her training to use and came up with this game for him and his friends. She drew a chalk grid, five squares wide and four squares long, on her patio. In random order, she wrote a number from zero to nine in each box, using each number twice. Joshua would toss a rock onto one square, then another. If his rock hit a seven and a nine, for example, he multiplied the numbers together. If he calculated correctly (Mom was there to check), he jotted the number on the sidewalk. If not, he marked down zero. Each player got 10 tries. The person with the highest score at the end won. "They weren't even thinking about doing math," Robin says. "They just had a great time."

OPEN A DINER

It's a typical morning at Nancy's Diner in Valparaiso, Indiana. Four hungry patrons scan the specials on the chalkboard, pull up to the counter, and place their orders. "I'll have Cheerios and some juice," Katie says. "And for you?" Nancy asks Brendan. "Apple Jacks and toast," he says. "Coming right up," Nancy says, jotting down the requests.

Every morning, the four Scannell children--Katie, nine, Bethy, eight, Brendan, five, and Brigid, two--pick from a limited menu and dig into a breakfast prepared by Mom. They total up the price of their own meals and pay in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters taken from a family cookie tin. To keep them on their toes, Nancy shifts the prices: One day cereal might cost 46 cents, the next day, 19. "The diner started last year when I realized that the kids didn't know much about denominations of money, and I figured this would be a fun way to get it across," she says.

Once a month, the diner opens at night, and Nancy and the kids switch roles. The children pick a simple menu, set the prices, and with a little help, serve the meal to their parents. Most weekends, the diner is closed, but when Monday rolls around, it's back to business as usual.