DD wants to learn about money and time. So I figure we ought to learn to count by 5's and 10's, and maybe while we're at by 2's. She can add, subtract, and multiply and divide by 2's (often with manipulatives) so the concept is definitely not beyond her. She's 5.5.

Any suggestions for bringing this into our lives without making it really contrived? Or great money or time games you want to share?

I found using a number line very helpful in teaching.

Last "term" we added 1 dime to a pot per day for 100 days. Each day we counted them so dd got very good at counting by 10's

This "term" we are collecting money again, but this time we are collecting the amount of the day as we count to 100. Day 29, 29 cents...

HTH, NAK

Why not just use the real things? Get her a watch or a clock and just talk about your day in terms of time ("in 5 minutes we'll bake cookies," or "At 3:00 we'll go to the park." ect.) Same with money--once she knows the denominations, count out your change together, or play store with objects in your house.

For money--take her shopping with you (grocery store)...give her change--and for random food items, have her count out the amount (without the tax) with the change. Or help her with estimation...when calculating/estimating the bill for the food for that day...

For time--give her warnings when you're going to leave--but much further in advance...."We're going to leave in 27 minutes...what time will it be in 27 minutes?" Or put her in charge of keeping track of how long the cookies have been in the oven....or help her figure out how old she is in hours or minutes...

Just some random suggestions! :)

How old is your daughter? It makes a real difference with things like this. My son is two years old, and I have no idea where or when he learned to read a clock but apparently he has learned to read the hours and half hours...:shrug He loves to look at the clock and say "it's ten-thirty!" or such, and he's inevitably right about it. The thing is, most two year olds couldn't care less about what time it is-- he only cares because he wants to know when Dadda is coming home from work, or when we're going to visit his grandparents, etc; he noticed that these things happen around the same time of day, so he asked about it (I guess that's when he learned to read a clock...:shrug). He still doesn't care about money, except to stack coins up or feed them to his sister's dinosaur bank.

If you don't want it to be contrived, you have to think about how time and money are relevant to her life. Does she want to know when things will happen, or how much money she can spend on x/y/z? What sort of things does she care about? Grocery shopping may be very interesting to her or very boring to her; likewise, a trip to a toystore or bookstore may or may not be relevant to her life. These things vary, not only by age but by personality and situation.

When you think about it, we use time and money in so many ways in our daily life. My children have soaked up a lot of knowledge just in their life experiences, and in asking lots of questions. I always try to be ready for impromptu lessons when a question comes up while shopping, cooking dinner, or waiting for a specific activity to begin.

Get her a watch. If she can recognize numbers, a digital watch is easy to use. We also have a regular clock available(I bought it after I realized we didn't have one!) that I explain to DD how to use when she asks. We have a daily schedule with times listed for wake up, AM snack, lunch, PM snack, Dad's arrival home and bedtime. My kids also like to watch the microwave timer when cooking, or for timing things like tooth brushing. When we go out, the kids make sure to wear their watches so that they can be the "time keepers" to make sure we make it places on time.

Using money is great fun. Our kids earn allowance, collect change in piggy banks, recieve spending money when shopping, and have plenty of play money to use also. I try to use cash at the store when I can, and let the kids pay for me. I taught my DD to look for an item under a certain amount, like the first number needs to be a 2 or less and she is learning to read price tags. While it can take a little more time, the kids love to help shop at real stores over playing a board or card game(though they love these too).

When my DS was around 7 or so, he was really into counting change. On his own he realized that 4 quarters equal a dollar, and the pride in his face when he shared his discovery with me was priceless. His real life experiences and self initated exploration results in more meaning for him than learning this from a textbook or someone trying to teach it to him when he isn't interested.

HTH!

After 2 full years in school (K-1st grade) learning about money and time in her math workbook and with various manipulatives in the classroom, dd still came out of school without a strong grasp of these concepts. All it took was one-on-one time with her at home this year, along with the real things. We used real money and played store. We used a real clock (actually I have a small Judy clock that works well too) and played quiz with each other. She finally understands, and it was very very simple. :)