It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these posts isn’t it?
I really do believe that it’s never to early to start teaching children the value of money and I strongly feel that it should be a subject covered in the National Curriculum both at primary and secondary level. But as much as I’m sure that most teachers try to cover this, it’s not currently covered as a stand alone subject so it’s our job as parents to make sure we help our children learn about finance and the impacts it can have on their life when their older.
That’s why I started writing these Friday posts and that’s why I’m going to be starting them up again. I hope you’ll join me each week again and if you would like to write a guest post for me about the subject then please do let me know as it’s great to hear other people’s perspectives too. 😉
The younger your child is, the harder it’ll be to sit them down and talk to them about money – and to be fair, just telling them about how something works is the best way to make sure that it goes in one ear and out of the other. So we do a lot of learning through play….
Board games are a great way to learn about the value of money. Monopoly is one example which springs to mind straight away as is the Game of Life. The Game of Life is very interesting at the start where you are given the option of two routes – one to get a job and start earning money straight away and another slightly longer route which takes you through college so you don’t get a job straight away but when you do, you get a higher wage. We’ve had some very interesting conversations around this decision in the past.
Allowing children to just play with money is another great way to encourage learning through play and this was always one of my favourite things to do when I was little. When my two were younger we had a jar that had about two or three of each coin in and we used to ask them to make up a set amount of money from the coins – so I would ask them for 76p and they would find as many different ways to make 76p using the coins they had.
You can also have a look through your purse and keep an eye out for the coins that were introduced in 2008 as they all go together and make up a shield which can be a fun kind-of jigsaw for slightly older children to do.
Another favourite of ours is to play at being shopkeepers – until recently we had a till and we often used to pretend to go shopping. You can also combine this with tidying up if you’re feeling sneaky. I used to get the kids to empty a cupboard in the kitchen or in their bedroom and organise the contents like a shop on the table. Then we would play for a while and when I said to put things away, we would do that much more neatly that it was when it came out and minus any tat that the ‘shopkeeper’ would get rid of as he couldn’t possibly sell it in his shop!
There are also numerous apps for phones and tablets that will help children to learn about money while they actually think they’re playing but I’ll cover that in another week….
Have a lovely weekend!
