There are many inventive ways to teach your children about money at home. For younger children, the first step is to have them learn to distinguish between the different coins and bills. They should be able to sort the coins by their appearance, learn their value, and begin to be able to count them. You can also use this to reinforce addition and subtraction skills as well as learning the skill of skip counting.
Older child should able to easily count money, count change, calculate tips, or even learn about the process of saving, spending, giving, and investing. These are all very important life skills and help children to practice good financial thinking at an early age. In addition, reinforcing these skills at home and when shopping can be a fun and engaging activity.
One way that you can practice money skills with your child is to play “restaurant.” You can take turns being the waiter or being the customer. The waiter would need to give a check or bill, collect the appropriate amount of money, and provide the customer change. The customer would need to provide enough to cover the bill, receive the correct amount of change, and then calculate a tip based on the original bill.
Money bingo would be a great idea for younger children. You can print the boards from online and then have your child place the coins as you call them. This helps with recognition of the coins and the ability to figure out the denomination. You can even play a more advanced version online here. For this game, the child will need to be able to count money (various levels to choose from) and then chose the correct denomination on the Bingo board.
Instead of having a traditional piggy bank for your child, you could choose a divided piggy bank. This includes sections for the child to save, spend, donate and invest the money that they earn. Children should earn money by completing chores or helping to setup and run a garage sale or lemonade stand.