Money, Money, Money!!!!
There is a hot new topic in our house - MONEY!
My husband and I decided it was time to institute allowance in our home, but not without a way to earn it. We don't believe in just giving the kids money for nothing - we want them to learn to earn what they get, and have an appreciation for it. So we gave all of them, except Buddy Boy, charts with four or five jobs a day, and told them they would earn 'X' amount of dollars - if they complete each of them, each day, all week.
Most of them are things they were fairly accustomed to, and we will change them now and then, probably monthly.
With their new found 'wealth', it was a great time for teaching two things:
1. How to spend and how to save! We believe in a 10% tithe, so one dollar of their weekly allowance is always given in dimes, making it easier to understand the concept of 10 percent. We also encourage giving extra to missionaries - there is great value in a dollar well earned, but we also want to teach them to be givers and have a love for missionaries - one day, it may be them that God calls to a foreign field, and they will see the other side of missions' giving.
2. The Money Exchange Game!
Before I go farther, I will explain that I threw this together quickly -I have a different way that I want to actually have it set up on their shelves, but I quickly grabbed the plastic cereal bowls just to have something at the moment.
I found the idea for this from this post at The Education of Ours, and fell in love with it. And then sat on it - for months! I wish now I would have set it up long ago, but that's generally the way things go, so I am just thankful that we have it together now.
Hoss has fallen in love with it, and wants to play repeatedly! He has mastered quantities and coin/dollar values for some time now, but never was challenged on exchange values, so I knew this one would be fun for him. It has also been a great tool for Miss Priss, who learned some of her coin names/values through a grocery shopping game we play (more on that at a later time), but within a couple games, knew the exchanges for 5 pennies, 2 nickels, and 2 dimes and a nickel quite easily, while Hoss was doing the more complicated ones, mixing pennies, dimes, and nickels and often 'holding his exchanges' a few turns, so he could make 'a big one!', as he called it.
I got our tiny dice from a numbers/counting game
that one of the children got for Christmas.
By the end of the week, Hoss even got the change to teach his Daddy how to play, and the male competitiveness was almost too funny to watch!
I would love to hear your ideas on different ways to teach money values/exchanges and differentiation between coins/bills!
I have a feeling this game will be on our shelves for a while, as one will outgrow it just in time for another to move up and learn from it :) And those are the kind of works I like the best!
*UPDATE*
I realized that I should have included the directions for this wonderfully easy game. So here are some quick instructions for how to play:
The player(s) roll the dice to find out who goes first. The first one rolls the dice, and get the number of pennies according to their roll. Then the dice gets passed to the next/other player. Each time your turn comes up, check first - if you have enough pennies/nickels/dimes to make an exchange, the exchange comes FIRST. You can do it anyway you like, but I wanted them to do it first, to get that out of the way before they continued to play their turn. Then they roll, get the numbers of pennies (always pennies, because even if they roll a 5 or 6, I want them to get the experience in of the exchange). This goes on until they get to a dollar, basic exchanges being as follows:
5 pennies = 1 nickel
2 nickels = 1 dime
2 dimes and 1 nickel = a quarter
Now, that being said, Hoss figured out quickly how to make it look like he had less, and then make a big exchange (in order to trick the other player, I guess!) so sometimes he has exchanges like 5 nickels, or 5 dimes, or 25 pennies etc. and so on.... But you get the point! I hope you and your little schoolers have fun playing this game! :)
My husband and I decided it was time to institute allowance in our home, but not without a way to earn it. We don't believe in just giving the kids money for nothing - we want them to learn to earn what they get, and have an appreciation for it. So we gave all of them, except Buddy Boy, charts with four or five jobs a day, and told them they would earn 'X' amount of dollars - if they complete each of them, each day, all week.
Most of them are things they were fairly accustomed to, and we will change them now and then, probably monthly.
With their new found 'wealth', it was a great time for teaching two things:
1. How to spend and how to save! We believe in a 10% tithe, so one dollar of their weekly allowance is always given in dimes, making it easier to understand the concept of 10 percent. We also encourage giving extra to missionaries - there is great value in a dollar well earned, but we also want to teach them to be givers and have a love for missionaries - one day, it may be them that God calls to a foreign field, and they will see the other side of missions' giving.
2. The Money Exchange Game!
Before I go farther, I will explain that I threw this together quickly -I have a different way that I want to actually have it set up on their shelves, but I quickly grabbed the plastic cereal bowls just to have something at the moment.
I found the idea for this from this post at The Education of Ours, and fell in love with it. And then sat on it - for months! I wish now I would have set it up long ago, but that's generally the way things go, so I am just thankful that we have it together now.
Hoss has fallen in love with it, and wants to play repeatedly! He has mastered quantities and coin/dollar values for some time now, but never was challenged on exchange values, so I knew this one would be fun for him. It has also been a great tool for Miss Priss, who learned some of her coin names/values through a grocery shopping game we play (more on that at a later time), but within a couple games, knew the exchanges for 5 pennies, 2 nickels, and 2 dimes and a nickel quite easily, while Hoss was doing the more complicated ones, mixing pennies, dimes, and nickels and often 'holding his exchanges' a few turns, so he could make 'a big one!', as he called it.
that one of the children got for Christmas.
By the end of the week, Hoss even got the change to teach his Daddy how to play, and the male competitiveness was almost too funny to watch!
I would love to hear your ideas on different ways to teach money values/exchanges and differentiation between coins/bills!
I have a feeling this game will be on our shelves for a while, as one will outgrow it just in time for another to move up and learn from it :) And those are the kind of works I like the best!
*UPDATE*
I realized that I should have included the directions for this wonderfully easy game. So here are some quick instructions for how to play:
The player(s) roll the dice to find out who goes first. The first one rolls the dice, and get the number of pennies according to their roll. Then the dice gets passed to the next/other player. Each time your turn comes up, check first - if you have enough pennies/nickels/dimes to make an exchange, the exchange comes FIRST. You can do it anyway you like, but I wanted them to do it first, to get that out of the way before they continued to play their turn. Then they roll, get the numbers of pennies (always pennies, because even if they roll a 5 or 6, I want them to get the experience in of the exchange). This goes on until they get to a dollar, basic exchanges being as follows:
5 pennies = 1 nickel
2 nickels = 1 dime
2 dimes and 1 nickel = a quarter
Now, that being said, Hoss figured out quickly how to make it look like he had less, and then make a big exchange (in order to trick the other player, I guess!) so sometimes he has exchanges like 5 nickels, or 5 dimes, or 25 pennies etc. and so on.... But you get the point! I hope you and your little schoolers have fun playing this game! :)
Hi! First, I LOVE the name of your blog and the quote that you have above that goes along with it! Second, my kids are LOVING playing with money right now too! We will try your ideas. I would love to invite you to link up at our Share It Saturday linky party. We have lots of creative ideas submitted each week and you would fit right in! http://www.sugaraunts.com/2013/03/share-it-saturday-10-and-our-week-in.html
ReplyDeleteHope to see you there!
Colleen at Sugar Aunts
Thank you so much Colleen! The name comes from a beautiful song, and it was a perfect fit, in my opinion! I hope they love the game - my Hoss is in LOVE with it and is going through a big money phase, exploring every aspect of it. You can count on my linking up on Saturdays! Thanks for the invite :)
Delete