We thought this week was going to be bright and sunny... instead it is rainy and cold... so we're stuck inside again today! My little guy has been really interested in money lately, so we decided to play store.
First we downloaded some fake fun money here. We stuck to just $1 and $5 bills. Next time I'll add quarters too (since he's really interested in those as well).
Then we colored the money. With older kids I would have them design their own bills and draw their own face in the center.
Next we cut the bills (a job for an adult) and sorted them into their correct stacks.
To set up the store we chose five objects from the toy room to sell. We didn't want it to be too overwhelming, so five objects was the perfect number.
We used tape and pieces of paper and attached price tags to each object. I had my little guy try and arrange the objects from biggest to littlest and then he assigned prices to the objects based on size (small objects cost less money than large objects).
We also came up with a name for the store and stuck it to the front of the cashier table. The shopkeeper wore a Google hat to distinguish him/her from the shoppers.
We took turns being the shopper/shopkeeper.
Skills we worked on included...
- counting 1-10
- counting money (we only counted by $1 bills)
- understanding this sign ($) means dollar
- communicating a want/need ("I want to buy that football")
- reading numbers 1-10
- using please/thank you when shopping in a store
- keeping track of money
- arranging objects and numbers from biggest to smallest/smallest to biggest
- learning different ways to count our money (spreading $$ out to count, counting the bills into someone's hand, counting by 2s, etc.)
After we played for awhile, we restocked the store with snacks from the grocery store downstairs (kitchen :)). We talked about how store owners have to shop and stock up their store with items that they think their shoppers would want to buy.
We re-categorized everything and labeled everything with new prices.
There are so many fun ways to teach kids about money and most of them come up in natural every day scenarios. Playing store is also a great way to practice basic turn taking and conversational skills. I think earning play money for doing different tasks around the house would be such a great way to help kids pay for treats or special opportunities. My students LOVED earning play money to spend at our weekly class store. I love that playing store doesn't have to be very difficult at all (just need some sharpies, sticky notes, and a few store items)... but can be very powerful and useful!
How do you teach your kids about money in a fun way? We would love you to share any links to activities you've done (or seen done) that were beneficial for kids!
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