How Are Money Skills Still Helpful For Kids To Learn In Today's World?

Money is a necessary commodity in our lives, but it's a difficult concept for many children to understand. Because we are living in a plastic world, children don't always get to see and handle real money anymore. This makes it even more difficult for them to understand how to handle it and use it correctly.

It is up to us as teachers to help them understand the importance of money and how to count it, earn it, pay for things with it, and make change when needed. This can be a daunting task unless we use concrete examples and situations.

Recognizing Coins And Their Values

Recognizing coins and understanding their values is one of the first things that needs to be taught. There are many different resources available for doing this, but it's important to make sure that kids get to actually see and handle the coins or play money that looks like the coins as they practice identifying them and stating their values.

In Canada, we use the terms penny, nickel, dime, and quarter for the smaller values. It's amazing how many kids don't know which are which. I get questions like, "Is that the beaver, or the sailboat?" They examine the coins looking for clues as to how much each is worth. 

I suspect it is the same with kids in The United States. They may have different symbols on the coins, but the confusion still happens.

Resources for identifying and counting money

Here are some resources I created to help kids identify different coins and bills, recognize their values, and count money. There are Canadian and American versions as well as Boom cards versions for those wanting digital resources.

It's important to make sure that these resources are used with many different hands on opportunities to manipulate the money and look at it closely so that the connection can be made to the abstract examples of images and questions.

Resources for applying the skills

Applying the skills of counting, earning, and spending money is a necessary part of learning to handle money. I have created some resources to practice doing this. Note: Café Élisa is in French.

Learning about debit cards and money

Because we live in a world of plastic currency, it's important to make sure children understand that money is still exchanging hands and there must be money available in order to use the debit card. I created this unit to help kids better understand this and to provide opportunities for them to earn money and keep track of what was going in and out of their bank accounts. 

Other money matters 

Credit cards are another type of spending that adults use, but I didn't address this specifically with my students. It's a much bigger deal to explain debt and should be dealt with, but I feel it's best done in detail as kids get older.

Taxes are another part of money skills that needs to be addressed. This will require separate instruction to better understand how to calculate it and allow for an extra cost when calculating what money is needed to purchase things. There's nothing worse than getting to the checkout and discovering you are short of money because of the added taxes.

Kids need to be exposed to this in teaching about money so that they aren't disappointed when they go to buy something and don't have enough money. I have not specifically addressed this in any of my resources, but it's a necessary element to at least mention to younger children when teaching about spending money.

Even in a mostly electronic economy, it's important to be able to handle actual money for situations where cash is needed. Hopefully some of these resources will help with preparing your students for the monetary world out there. Check out some of my money bundles for more resources and extra savings.

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