Teaching Kids About Money

When Noah was a toddler, he was fascinated by money! He seemed to have an inherent understanding that coins were valuable. I remember him excitedly "stealing" coins from the consoles in our cars and from my husband's bedside table.
Depositing coins into his piggy bank became a big event! He would excitedly count the coins with us and then dance around singing "Money! Money! Money!" Noah got a ton of satisfaction from depositing each coin into his bank. It was so fun to watch. His grandparents would give him dollars and ask him what he would buy. Then we would all smile as he announced he was putting every dollar into his bank at home.
Despite his early fascination, I wasn't sure quite where to begin explaining money to him. How could I show him that a quarter was worth more than a nickel? How would that even make sense to a preschooler? Elly and Ada Grace don't share Noah's fascination with money, so I was even less sure how to introduce the concept of currency to them. I think we can all agree that it's an important lesson for kids, but where should we begin?
Recently, we introduced the concept of money and its value in a unique way...
The kids are fascinated by learning about different cultures and our current Mother Goose Time theme (It's A Small World) focuses on famous landmarks, geography, and world cultures. Last Wednesday's lesson focused specifically on currency. We always have so much fun with the themed activities Mother Goose Time sends in our yellow school bus box. We love sharing our journey here with you on the blog and we are grateful to receive our curriculum free of charge in exchange for telling you about our journey around the world this month!

First, we decorated our own paper wallets and filled them with pretend money! Like all good Southern girls, Ada Grace needed her wallet monogrammed.

After a short break spent pretending to buy "ice cream" with pretend money... we all gathered at the table to sort coins.  For the girls, we mostly focused on separating the coins into groups of like items.

We learned which coins are pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. We talked about how to tell them apart and practiced putting quarters with quarters, dimes with dimes, etc.
Then, I gave Noah a bit more information by showing him the value of each coin and discussing like amounts (1 dime is equal to 2 nickels, 5 pennies are equal to 1 nickel, etc,).