Financial Literacy Month Is Here - 5 Activities To Incorporate Finance Lessons While Homeschooling

April is National Financial Literacy Month, which was created to highlight the importance of financial literacy and teach Americans how to establish and maintain healthy financial habits. Due to the coronavirus, this April brings completely unprecedented challenges to parents. One of the most difficult is homeschooling, mainly because most parents have no experience in this, plus many are also balancing jobs.

Meaning many parents probably feel like there’s no way they can add another lesson / subject to their kids curriculum right now (I’m raising my hand). To avoid overload, the key is to do activities with your child that teach lessons and skills that you need to teach them anyway, so it’s not adding anything new to your plate.

The below activities are great to do because they don’t just teach finance; these activities can help your child understand important math concepts, history facts and business lessons. Here are five activities that you can easily do with your young kids, while continuing to work on their core subjects, from my book Beyond Piggy Banks and Lemonade Stands: How to Teach Young Kids About Finance .

1) Play Detective: All you need for this activity is one example of each: penny, nickel, dime, quarter, $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills. If you don’t have an example of each at home, just use what you have or look at a picture online. Start by simply talking about the features of the coins. Ask your child which ones are silver? What is the biggest coin? Which of men on the coins have long hair? Which ones have smooth sides and which are rough? You can then talk to them about the presidents that are on each coin – when were they president and what were they best known for?

For the dollar bills, ask them to find the below hidden objects:

• Where is the eyeball?
• Where is the Eagle on each bill?
• Which bill doesn’t have an Eagle on the front?
• How many times can you find the number 13 on the $1?
• Which bill has the White House on the back?
• Can you find the man sitting in a chair?
• Can you find the hidden keys?
• Which bill has a torch on the front?

Not only does this get them familiar with money, but you’re teaching them some fun facts about history and government.

2) Sorting Coins: This is as easy as it sounds. Get a handful of coins and ask your child to sort them into 4 piles: pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Have them do it again, with a different assortment. This may not sound like it’s teaching anything, but it’s providing your child exposure and repetition – both which are needed to get them comfortable and familiar with money.

3) Counting Coins: What better way to teach kids to count than by counting coins? Keep your coins out and start off simply. Line all the coins up by value and remind your child what each one is worth. To illustrate this, next to the penny, put one penny. Next to the nickel, put five pennies, and so on. Then move on to some simple counting activities like the ones below.

• This is a golden opportunity to help your child learn to count by 5s and 10s by lining up dimes and nickels.
• Create two piles of coins and ask your child which one is bigger by counting the number of coins. Then with the same two piles, ask your child to figure out which one is worth more by counting the value. Examples are 10 pennies vs. 3 dimes, or 2 quarters vs. 6 nickels.

4) Money Math: Counting money naturally leads to math. Line up a random group of coins and ask your child to count up how much it’s worth. Start out easy with a small amount of similar coins (5 pennies and 2 dimes), and add coins as your child gets better with the math. Then have them solve math equations, like the ones below:

• Ask your child how they can make $.52 with the coins they have. Then have them do it again with the same number, using different types of coins. Repeat this activity with several different amounts. You can also ask them different variations, such as “only using 4 coins, how can you make $.52?”
• How can you make $.37 using four coins? What about using 7 coins? Try one more time using 11 coins.
• What’s worth more: 1 quarter, 3 dimes and 5 pennies OR 17 pennies and 1 dime?
• How many nickels are in 2 quarters?

You child is not only learning addition and subtraction, but you’re sneaking in division and multiplication.

5) Make them pay: Make up games at home that require your child to pay for things. This can be a fun, elaborate activity like playing “store” with their toys. Start off playing the customer, with your child as the cashier. As cashier, your child needs to determine how much money is due, and how much change the customer will receive. Then switch roles, and have your child calculate how much money they will need to buy the items in their shopping cart.

Or it can be as simple as making treats “cost” money. If your child wants a cookie after dinner, tell them that will cost him $.31 (meaning he just has to figure out what coins he could use to come up with $.31, not that he actually has to pay).

Playing “real world” games allows your child to practice their math skills, but also teaches them important concepts such as the value of money and how businesses make money.

Hang in there, parents.

This article was written by Liz Frazier from Forbes and was legally licensed by AdvisorStream through the NewsCred publisher network.