Do You Remember . . .

Do you remember when you realized that money had value? When each coin and piece of paper money meant something? When you realized that having 10 pennies is not more than have three dimes? There are two memories that stand out for me.

First, when I was a young child, about six years old, and still an only child, my father would collect and then leave all his pennies for me to gather and count. I would save them in a big jar, and every few weeks, I would dump them out and count them. I soon learned that putting them in piles of 10, made counting them easier. When the jar was full, or if I wanted to buy something with my money, my mom, who worked at a bank, would bring home coin wrappers and I would wrap up those pennies to trade in for cash. Through this act of stacking and counting not only was I building upon my number sense, but also gaining understanding of the value of money.

Second, my family loved to play games. I remember staying up late with the adults playing card and board games. Also, I was sick a lot when I was a kid, and board games were what my mother used to keep me still and my mind active. Monopoly was a huge favorite of ours. I LOVED being banker, so I had to learn how to make change, as well as trade in cash i.e. two $50 equals $100, and so on. Now Monopoly comes with a debit/credit card! It's just not the same!

In this current culture where we can do all our banking, game playing, and counting on a technology device,I am seeing children who do not have a good foundation in counting, combining, and changing money. I am a techno geek, and I have seen some incredible online games, and sites that help children understand banking, money, and even the stock market, but I think it loses something in translation.

All math programs like Investigations have units on money, during which our students practice and are assessed on their money skills. When the unit is over, they move on to something else. Money sense, like math facts, needs to practiced repeatedly or students may forget. There are many board games such as Monopoly and Life that have a banking system as a part of the game, such as Money, Power Grid, and Acquire.

A game I used to play with my kids is "How much money is in my pocket?" I would tell my sons I had 10 coins and 87 cents in my pocket. The boys would then think of what coins they could use that would fit the requirements. I had a coin jar they would use to formulate their answer. My two oldest boys liked the challenge of doing it mentally, the two youngest would check their answers using coins. They would love to stump one another with the the most possible coins to make the smallest total.

This site has links to some great articles on teaching kids about money.