Making Financial Literacy Fun at Home!

Patria Lincoln Posted On Apr 8, 2020 | Math

April is Financial Literacy Month, so it's the perfect time to help your kids build solid foundations on money matters! As you plan your at-home learning lessons for the month, try incorporating some of the following activities that use dollars and cents to introduce math skills, history facts, and more!

Money Recognition

The road to financial literacy begins with the basics: money recognition! For this lesson, gather as many different examples of your chosen currency as you can find around the house, and set it out on the table. With your kids, identify each coin and bill by name, as well as monetary value. If you're in the mood for history, you can even explain the stories behind the people and landmarks that appear on your money!

Counting With Cash

Once you've introduced all of your coins and bills, it's time to start counting with cash! To start, have your kids count up to 100 using only one kind of coin, then repeat with the others. Keep each set of stacks, then compare them at the end to explain the value relationships between each coin. For an added greater-than/less-than challenge, make two random piles of coins, and have your kids figure out which one has the higher value. This activity works best with lots of coins; if you don't have real coins around the house, play money is a fine substitute.

Set Up Shop

This one's a great imaginative activity for older kids. Have your kids select some toys or other household objects as stock for their pretend shop. Once they've selected their stock, have them set prices for each item. Then, playing the part of the customer, make a few different purchases totaling different amounts of money, and have your kids make change for your payments. If you have the Calculator Cash Register, this is a great opportunity to see it in action!

International Adventure

Financial literacy is important all over the world. For a fun introduction to other cultures, explore the money of another country with your kids. Whether you're looking at actual leftover currency from an international vacation or just an online article with plenty of pictures, use this time to talk about how money is similar and different in other parts of the world. If you've got older kids, you could even introduce the concepts of relative value and exchange rates! How much would their allowance be worth in British pounds? How about Japanese yen?

At Learning Resources, we’re here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy

Patria Lincoln | Posted on Apr 30, 2020

Five Ways to Spice Up Your Daily Walks

Patria Lincoln | Posted on Mar 25, 2020

School Break Trips from Home!

[Updated on 3/17/21] Even though we're staying inside these days, we've still got ways to explore the wide world from home! Add some extra fun to your spring break plans with these virtual field trip ideas, which let you and your kids travel to museums, zoos, and even outer space from the comfort of your living room.

Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems

It's not every day that you get the chance to take a drawing lesson from one of the world's most beloved children's book authors. Usually, that is. With kids out of school, author Mo Willems (creator of the Pigeon series, Elephant and Piggie, and more) is hosting a lunchtime drawing program on YouTube that connects kids with their artsy side every afternoon.

Virtual Museum Tours

Have you ever wanted to take your kids to the world's great museums and architectural sites? Thanks to Google Arts & Culture, you can do with without ever leaving the house! Their Museum Views collection lets you take virtual tours of more than 3,400 sites across the United States and around the world. You can even treat your little learners to a trip to the Boston Children's Museum!

Story Time with Michael Chabon

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon knows that what the world needs now is a good bedtime story. That's why he's spending his evenings at home reading the classics of children's literature, voices and all. Available on Youtube, the author's series updates every evening; past selections include Olivia, The Story of Ferdinand, and Harry the Dirty Dog.

Cincinnati Zoo Home Safaris

Although we can't go to the zoo right now, we can bring the zoo home online! At the Cincinnati Zoo, keepers are hosting daily Home Safaris to introduce viewers to the wild, wooly worlds of their animal residents. Tune in on Facebook Live each day, and you might meet hippos, cheetahs, rhinoceroses, and more!

Dutch Hollow Dairy Farm

A trip to the farm is always enlightening, even from the comfort of your home! Take your kids on this virtual tour of New York's Dutch Hollow Dairy Farm for an inside look at the secret lives of cows. Produced in cooperation with the American Dairy Association, the tour is geared for kids in grades K-4.

Ellis Island

As America faces its current challenges, we can take this opportunity to reflect on the nation's status as the world's melting pot. With Immigration: Stories of Yesterday and Today, the folks at Scholastic have put together a virtual tour of Ellis Island, the immigration station that welcomed more than 12 million future Americans between 1892 and 1954.

International Space Station

When it comes to virtual field trips, you're not limited to places here on Earth! Led by the astronauts stationed there, these virtual tours of the International Space Station give you and your kids an inside look at the scientific goings-on happening far above the planet.

Yellowstone National Park

It's springtime, which means our national parks are waking up from their long winter slumbers. Thanks to the National Parks Service, you can take a virtual visit to the country's oldest park. The tour takes you to seven different sites around the park, including the Mud Volcano, the Mammoth Geyser, and the Flower Paint Pot.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Adventure under the sea with this virtual visit to one of America's premiere aquariums. Thanks to the live cams set up around the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you can catch glimpses of animals from jellyfish and penguins to sharks and sea otters. There's even a feed that shows you the open waters of the bay itself!

Discover Ancient Egypt

As you explore these virtual field trips, don't miss the opportunity to travel back in time! Discover Ancient Egypt brings one of humanity's most storied societies back to life with cool interactive online recreations. Explore 3D temples, learn about the pyramids, or even study hieroglyphics!

At Learning Resources, we're here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds.