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Teaching Kids Everyday Money Skills

online game helps student find spirit of giving

Online Game Helps Student Find the Spirit of Giving

This is a story shared with me by a friend of mine. It is about her student Calvin and a life lesson he learned from, of all things, a video game.

My friend is a second-grade teacher. She regularly uses technology to assist and support her lesson plans and she is always on the lookout for something new on the tech side… something unique, challenging, and fun for kids.

She allows her students tech time to play MoneyPrep because it teaches and reinforces a subject that is so critical for kids to learn… money.

One of the many money challenges in the game is to practice splitting out your savings into 3 jars — Spend, Save, and Give.

Now her student Calvin did this many times and got pretty used to dividing out money into categories. Not only that, he ended up creating a personal strategy of sorts for how he divided his money into these 3 jars, no matter how much he had.

Well, as she tells it… his practice started to become a habit… in real life.

At a parent-teacher conference, Calvin’s mom shared a wonderful story.

He emptied his piggy bank at home and began counting. He divided out his money into piles on the floor, asked his mom for a Ziploc bag, and loaded it with one of the piles of coins. Then he took a sharpie and wrote “Give” on it.
Calvin told his mom that they should give it to the homeless shelter for juice boxes or socks.

This parent was gobsmacked and praised my friend for teaching the students about money skills and financial education. She had never taught him about split savings or the idea of a give jar at home but there he was, ahead of the curve.

Learning layered savings and smart spending are just a few of the things that MoneyPrep teaches kids.

Being smart with money comes from smart money habits. Start them early, let them play! They might just surprise you!