Understanding Money For Children

Dealing with money is an essential life skill and you will be surprised how quickly a child of around five years of age will begin to grasp the fundamentals of this skill.

Young children should be given change to handle always under adult supervision due to the choking hazard. Make them aware of how many 1 pence's make a 5 pence or a 10 pence. Demonstrate how many different ways their are of making 5 pence, 10 pence and 20 pence etc.

When you go shopping point out the prices of your child's favourite items. This item costs 25 pence, you would receive 5 pence change from 30 pence (show your child 3 ten pence pieces) or these are four for a pound that is 25 pence each. Children are like sponges they soak up knowledge and remember almost everything especially from people they trust like their parents or guardians.

Play cafe, pricing up each item using small sums of money. Eg tea and coffee costs 10 pence each a milk shake costs 12 pence and a small cake costs 15 pence and so on. Ask the child to make their own menus using lots of colour. Swap roles have them serve you as different characters, change hats and clothes and take it in turns at operating the cash register. Your child will be having fun acting the various roles and the counting will not be their main focus.

Be careful not to move on to larger numbers to quickly. Many problems children experience with maths are due to moving on to more difficult sums before they have completely mastered the basics, so build the foundations slowly and solidly and the rest will follow.

When your child as a good understanding and is very confident they can move on to more difficult number problems. Adam has £5.00 and spends £2.00. Sarah also has £5.00 and spends £1.50. How much more money does Sarah have?

Money is quite a difficult concept to understand for young children, some children find the fact that a 5 pence is worth less than a 2 pence as the 2 pence is a lot bigger confusing. Patience and practice over a long period of time will not only give your child the money skills they need; but also an excellent maths foundation to build on.

Make money fun

Use a jar or plastic container to save all your and your child's loose change in. Ask your child what treat they want and have them look up the price. Get your child to count the change in the jar at the end of each week and when you have enough money in the jar they can buy what they wanted.

A free download of Money Supermarket a math game for the child with a better understanding of math's

Educational Adventures are currently testing a maths money workbook for younger children.