Penny Saved: Taking Your Work Skills Home: Teaching Your Children the Values and Life Skills They Will Need to Live in the Real World - Softcover

Godfrey, Neale S.

 
9780684824802: Penny Saved: Taking Your Work Skills Home: Teaching Your Children the Values and Life Skills They Will Need to Live in the Real World
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0684824809 ISBN 13: 9780684824802
Verlag: Simon and Schuster, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Neale Godfrey's Money Doesn't Grow on Trees flew to the top of the bestseller list by helping parents teach their kids the value and uses of money. In her latest national bestseller, A Penny Saved, Godfrey builds on those basic concepts -- for preschoolers through teenagers -- and gives parents a concrete structure to teach values and essential life skills.
Parents want their children to grow up with healthy self-esteem, sound judgment, self-discipline, and the ability to take care of themselves in an uncertain world. They want their children to learn the positive lessons of honesty, responsibility, cooperation, and ethical behavior. By teaching children to understand what money is, how to use it, and what it can -- and can't -- do, parents prepare their children for life in the real world.
Worksheets, quizzes, teaching games, and age-appropriate exercises give kids hands-on opportunities to hone their practical skills.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Neale S. Godfrey writes a weekly Associated Press column and is the author of fourteen books that address money in the context of life skills and values. She has made numerous appearances on such television shows as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and Today, and she is the founder of Children's Financial Network, Inc.

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Chapter 1

Money as a Life Skill

Magic Plastic Cards and Little Silver Coins

The first things little children learn about money are (a) it can get them things they want; and (b) their parents always seem to have it. In fact, if we're not careful, money can take on a magical quality to them. When Rhett was three, we were out together one day, and he saw a toy he wanted. Naturally he asked me to buy it for him.

I told him I didn't have any money with me -- which was true. Like any other parent, I'm capable of saying the first thing that comes into my head in certain moments of weakness, but I never lie about money. Too much missionary zeal, I guess.

"Oh, don't worry, Mommy," he said. "You can just use that magic plastic card you carry in your purse."

That taught me a few things -- not the least of which was the resourcefulness of a small child bent on getting what he wants. It also brought home to me the necessity of making sure that even our little ones begin learning the value of money.

Little children's first natural instincts are for survival. The first concept they're going to understand -- the first one they need to understand -- is getting; and after that comes having. When it comes to money, they're naturally going to understand spending first, earning second. A true understanding of saving and sharing doesn't come till later. But it's still important that parents keep presenting all four aspects of dealing with money together, as a natural part of the process.

Magic card or no, it's the tangibility of money that makes it such an effective early tool in teaching children how the world is structured. It's tangible and it's visible: they see it every day, they see it being used, and they quickly grasp the general concept of how it's used. (As a matter of fact, Rhett was right and I was wrong in that toy store -- I did have money in the form of my little plastic card. I explained to him about the card: it didn't mean I got things for free or by magic; it was a promise to pay the money at the end of the month. I also had to simply tell him no, I wasn't going to buy him that toy, on that day.)

Money is one of the first experiences a child has with abstract, symbolic concepts. Speech is the first, and that may well be the hardest intellectual challenge a human being faces -- understanding that these strange sounds big people make actually represent things, and actions, and even feelings you can't see like hunger or sleepiness, happiness or sadness.

If a child can work that one out, she can work out that silver coins and green pieces of paper -- if they're the right ones -- can be exchanged for things she really wants, like toys and candy.

If you ask your children what Mommy and Daddy do with money, and they can answer, "They go into the store and buy things with it," then they have grasped the basic concept of using money as a medium of exchange.

The truth is, I can't know exactly what Rhett was thinking or what magic he imagined in that little card. But he did know you had to do something -- you couldn't just walk into the store and take the toy away with you.

Susan Walker, who operates a day care center in Kingston, New York, and who has provided this book with some wonderful insights on working with preschoolers, has seen her two-year-old, Patrick, learn his first lessons about money at a local game arcade. "He knows Mommy turns in the green pieces of paper for coins, and that you can put coins into slots to make the games work," she says. "In fact, that's why I had to get the seat belts in my ear fixed. Patrick put a quarter in the slot of the seat belt fastener."

Show and Tell

The first lessons to teach your child are built around games that encourage a tangible relationship to money. They are money identification games, stacking and counting games, change-making games, measuring games.

For all of these games, use real money, not play money. Toddlers have been known to swallow coins. Supervise your children closely and take the money away when you are finished playing.

Money Identification Games

These are the basic games, the first ones you'll teach (although variations on money bingo can make it a favorite for a few years, anyway). Very little children won't fully understand concepts of value at first, but they can understand games of "how much." They must be able to see, and be able to identify, the physical substance of money before they can do anything with it.

The Coin Identification Game

Goal: To tell the difference between one coin and another.

You'll need: Four jars, each of them marked with all the names of the coin that jar will represent. The penny jar will be labeled "Penny, 1¢, One Cent"; the nickel jar "Nickel, 5¢, Five Cents"; the dime jar "Dime, 10¢, Ten Cents"; the quarter jar "Quarter, 25¢, Twenty-five Cents." Put a few coins of the right denomination in each jar.

You'll also need a dish and a bunch of coins of different denominations.

Rules: First, pick up a coin from the dish, tell the child what it is ("penny," "nickel," and so on), and have the child repeat the name of the coin and put it in the right jar. Next, you can add another challenge by naming the coin and asking the child to give the other name for it ("quarter," "twenty-five cents").

When he has mastered that round, tell him the name of the coin and have him find it in the dish and put it in the right jar.

What it teaches: Recognizing different coins by appearance, identifying them by name. Since the jars are picked up and put away at the end of each game session, it also teaches neatness and responsibility for belongings. And the sorting of money into jars for fun gives the child an early positive feeling about the jars he'll be using later on for saving.

Money Bingo

Goal: To fill up a "bingo card"; if you're playing with more than one child, to be the first to fill up a bingo card.

You'll need: "Bingo cards" that you make up yourself, on pieces of cardboard, so they can be reused. Each card has twenty-five circles on it, five rows of five circles. You make the circles by tracing around coins -- pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters -- and then writing the value of each coin in the center of the circle. Write it in numerals -- 25¢, 5¢, and so forth. Make different cards, with the circles in different orders, with different numbers of each coin -- three nickels and eight quarters on one, five nickels and six quarters on the next, and so on.

You'll need a pile of coins for each child.

Rules: You hold up a coin and say its name, not its value (penny, nickel, dime, or quarter). Each child has to fill all the circles on his or her card with a coin in the right denomination. After four rounds, the one who has filled the most spaces wins. If all the children fill up their whole cards, everyone wins.

What it teaches: In addition to coin identification, this is the very beginning of another important life lesson. Exchange of money for goods is a life skill that is always performed under pressure. When you buy something, you have to come up with at least the right amount of money and give it to someone who is judging your ability to handle this task. There's time pressure, too -- this other person expects you to do it promptly. If you give more than the right amount of money, you'll get change back, and you have to count that quickly and make sure it's right. These are skills that can be daunting to children, and the play pressure of money bingo can help get them used to it.

Further variations: Have the children make their own game cards, by doing soft pencil or...

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Verlag
Simon and Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0684824809
ISBN 13 
9780684824802
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
244
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Enizelhändler
1772888517
rotmistrz83@googlemail.com

Westarpstr. 2
Westarpstr. 2
Berlin
Berlin
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Deutschland

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