Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Money Games and Activities

Money is such an important thing for kids to learn about and understand! It's truly a real life skill. Here are a few things that you can do at home to help your kids understand money:

These are books about money:
The Coin Counting Book by Rozanne Lanczak Williams
If You Made a Million by David Schwartz (awesome book with all kinds of things you could talk about after reading this...)
Arthur's Funny Money
Follow the Money by Loreen Leedy
My Rows and Piles of Coins by Tololwa Mollel
How Much is that Guinea Pig in the Window? By Joanne Rocklin

Activities:
1. Talk to kids about where money comes from and how important it is to save and to plan how to spend. Talk about how when you are paid, you then have to spend that money to pay bills, buy food and gas, etc. Read about or talk about different jobs that they might enjoy or be good at when they get bigger.

2. Get out playdough and some coins. Have them flatten out the playdough and then press 3-5 coins into the playdough to make imprints. Then they can either name which coins they are and what they are worth. Or they can add the coins to find the total. (For older kids, you could then have them subtract their total from a dollar or five dollars).

3. Play Coins in a Bag (takes 2 or more players): Put some coins in a bag. Players take turns pulling out a coin and saying the name of the coin (penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar) and its value (1, 5, 10, 25 or 50 cents).
If they correctly name the coin and its value, they get to keep it. If not, they have to put it back in the bag. The first one to get 20 coins wins. To make this even more enticing, let your child actually keep the coins when they are done and then decide how to save/spend the money.

4. Play the harder version of coins in a bag (2 or more players): Put coins in a bag. Players take turns pulling out a coin and saying the name and value of the coin. After you reach 5 coins (or 3, 4, 6, 7 or 8--you decide), each person figures out how much money they have altogether. The person who gets the highest total wins and keeps both people's money. OR you could say the person who gets closest to a dollar without going over gets to keep both piles of money (or they just WIN! They don't have to keep the money.) Play 2 or 3 times.

5. Race for a Quarter: Take turns with partner rolling a die. The number on the die tells you how many pennies you get. When you get five pennies, trade them for a nickel. When you get two nickels, trade for a dime. If you get two dimes and a nickel, trade for a quarter. You must exchange during your turn. Once you pass the die to the next person, you can't trade. Keep playing until you can trade four quarters for a dollar.

6. What's in my pocket? Tell your child/partner that you have some coins in your pocket (under $1). They need to guess what is in your pocket by listening to the clues you give. You might tell them how many coins are in your pocket or that the total is between 50 and 75 cents. You might tell them the total and make them figure out what combination of coins you have for that total. As they make guesses, you mioght tell them if their guess was high or low.

7. Giving an allowance...even if it's just a small amount... can be a great real life way for kids to learn about money. They can then have responsibilities, like they have to save one dime for every dollar they earn or they have to buy their own candy at the store.

8. Shel Silverstein has a great poem about money called Smart found in Where the Sidewalk Ends. You might want to read it together, memorize it, talk about it and whether the child really was smart and why/why not.

9. Song about money:
Sing to tune of 10 Little Indians:25, 50, 75, a dollar; 25, 50, 75, a dollar; 25,50, 75, a dollar, Four quarters makes a dollar.

Hope these ideas will help you and your child to see how fun money is and to help them get a better understanding of money.

Monday, July 12, 2010

activities for car rides

It seems I spend quite a bit of time in the car with my kids...traveling to and from school, going on short trips or just running errands. Car rides are great times to practice skills and talk. Here are a few ideas I've tried with my kids (ages 2, 5, and 7) as we drive in the car:

*practice phone number and address as well as child and parent's full names

*listen to books on tape or CD (you can check these out for free from the public library or buy them for good prices on the Scholastic book orders)

*talk about our day

*play rhyming games: one of us will give a word and everyone else takes turns saying a word that rhymes until we can't think of anymore (example: cat, hat, sat, fat, bat, ....)

*make up analogies. Analogies are a way to compare things.... the form is like this:
hot is to cold as up is to __________ (answer: down) I think up analogies and the kids try to guess what comes next. Some more examples: frogs are to green as pigs are to (pink), ice cream is to sweet as pretzels are to (salty), birds are to chirp as dogs are to (bark)

*play I Spy... one person says, "I spy with my little eye, something that is _______ (green or red or square or round)" Then everyone tries to guess what that person sees.

*the alphabet game: As you drive, look for each letter of the alphabet, in order. The letters can be on cars or other vehicles, buildings, signs, etc.

*Count objects: We'll count red cars or how many houses have flags flying or people wearing green.

*Practice skip counting... by two's, fives, tens, threes, fours. Skip counting gets kids ready for multiplication. Excellent practice.

*Look for things that are a certain shape (look for circles...hexagons, trapezoids) or solid (cylinder, cube, pyramid, cone).

*I have my older child (age 7) read to my younger ones sometimes as we drive.

*Sing fun children's songs. Raffi has lots of great CD's and here ar many other great singers. Again these can be checked out from the library for free. Many of the songs are educational, teaching shapes, colors, numbers, etc. Since we want our children to be bilingual (English and Spanish), I often check out CD's with Spanish music.

**One thing I haven't tried but that might be fun is to have one person start a story then after a few sentences have another family member continue the story, and then another and another, seeing how the story changes as each person adds to it.