Fun ideas to teach kids money management

[sunny_mom]

My friend's daughter is a 9 year old whose class has a marketing project!
First the class has to elect a city council. next the kids have to design a currency note and vote to pick the one to use.
Then the kids have to pick a service oriented store or a product oriented store that they will rent in their little town. services can be pedicures, massages or nay thing that the kids can actually give to their class mates. Products can be any thing that the kids have made like food items, any use ful handy crafts etc.
They even pay the city council rent with their fake money for their stalls! They receive salary from the city for having a business there. On the days that the kids are late to school the city council considers that as showing up late to work and cuts money from their pay!
The children will have to sell their products and services every Friday and if they notice that their store is not making much money they can even anounce a sale and reduce the price and figure out other ways of making their product/service more saleable!!

My daughter is too young (7) to have such things in her class but I am hoping she will have this in future... Or I will give this idea to the teachers in the PTO??
Does any body have such cool ideas and projects to teach kids managing money?

[ajrsmom]

This is such a great way of teaching! At 9, do they seem to grasp the whole idea?


My son is 7 too so I cant add any other idea just yet.

[sunny_mom]

yes, I think because it is all taught in such hands on method, the kids understan it perfectly! In fact if we make the kids sit and read about economy every thing will just be stored in such short term memory slot that it will escape before they the end of the year... but now they will not forget it for the rest of their lives!
I saw some of the products that this girl bought from her friends' stalls. There were turtle pen holders made out of sea shells etc.
Of course she got her nails painted, hair beaded, face massaged!

[hawaiiangirl96]

My daughter is five, and we have taught her how to manage money!!

And in a fun way also!!

Since the youngest is seven, I have seen classrooms where they set up a board-like piggie bank. Basically, cover the aspects of what each coin and bill is first. Then start adding in the "math" side of addition and subtraction. Once your younger one understands that - then try taking her to the grocery store and bring up different things and may be give her like a couple of dollars every now and then to see the REAL side of money.

For instance, if you give her $5 - allow her to do her own shopping. However, make her carry pad and pencil!! Say, "Okay sweetie here is $5. You can buy anything you want, but you cannot go over" Obviously, in most places there are taxes. Once she goes up to the register, explain you will pay for the tax.... You can cover the tax part when she learn multiplication - if she already does, then teach her how to figureo ut tax too!!

Allowing them to do it on their own makes it a little more understandable than just teaching it. In most cases, children learn faster and are able to retain the information when doing it through hand on experiences. I did do something similar like this with an afterschool program that had ages ranging from 6-12 years old. They had to "earn" their pizza/ice cream parties by doing things around the room. I literally had bills made up so the could see what was going into their funds. They all took turns adding and subtracting in their own portfolios. I even allowed them to collect their own funds to get things out of the Student Store that I stockpiled with goodies from Oriental Trading.

Money is a very powerful tool to teach Math!

[sunny_mom]

Yes, I do the shopping with their own money thing too!
I like the idea of chores around the house. What a fun thing to do! Let them earn their own Pizza/ice cream parties.. I will start that! THANK YOU!

[DeBora4BobbyL]

By the age of 9, children do have the ability to think abstractly. I gave my children an allowance and allowed them to either save it or buy things. They quickly learned the value of money and the fact that it doesn't grow on trees. When they asked me to help them buy things they could not afford, I would not help them. I would tell them that they would have to wait until they earned more money. This not only taught them the value of money, but also delayed gratification that so many children and adults do not seem to have now days.

[RobertaD]

Last school year in my DD1's third grade class they all had check registers and earned money to spend in the class store once a quarter. When they turned in homework on time they got to enter $.25 in the register, if it was late they got to subtract $.50 from their register. They had many different ways to earn money and when they made a purchase at the store they had to write out a check for their amount. The 6oz Hershey's chocolate bars were $20.00!!!! (what a mark up, LOL)

The class also had a classroom account that they earned money each day that there wasn't a major problem or a lot of kids getting into trouble where they earned a video & popcorn with so much money earned once every 2 or 3 months.

Roberta