What are good ways to teach younger children about money?

Speaker: What are good ways to teach younger children about money?

Janet Bodnar: Well, one thing you have to remember about younger children and by younger children I mean, preschoolers. They think in very concrete terms, so you have to stick with that. So for example, if you give them a choice between a nickel and a dime, they will probably take the nickel, even though it's worthless because it's bigger or if you give them a choice between a quarter and a dollar bill, they will probably take the quarter because they can spin it, they can flip it, they can do things with it and they are not really sure what they do with this piece of paper. So you have to remember that when you are dealing with preschoolers. Keep it simple and keep it very basic and concrete. So there are certain things you can do with them. You can let them use their own money to put into a vending machine, so that they know that money can be exchanged for other things. If they put something in the machine they will get juice or something at the bottom. Same thing with the dollar store, maybe you take them to the dollar store with some of their birthday money, their own birthday money, so they can exchange it for other things. Putting things saving money in a really fun savings bank and there are so many of them out there now. I have a whole collection of them, everything from traditional piggy banks to talking ATMs. Those are fun things to do with kids and certainly collecting the state quarters, a great thing to do with kids because they love to put them in the map. Again it's very concrete, a good lesson for kids.