Long before kids get old enough to earn money, you can still use it to teach them important skills. Play money is one of the most important educational aids in my classroom. Practically every week, some occasion comes up to use it. Sometimes, we are playing Monopoly. This game uses hundreds or even thousands of dollars of play bills to simulate real-world transactions. It is a lot of fun, but even more importantly, it teaches a little bit about the value of money. Kids learn how you can trade money for goods and services, in addition to getting some great practice with adding and subtracting.
Of course, play money is important for other things as well. You can use it to illustrate some pretty sophisticated mathematics. I have always used story problems as a way to make things easier for kids to understand. With some kids, it is easy to grasp the abstract mathematical principles. With others, however, they need to see a real-world situation. Story problems help, but sometimes it is even better if you have some play money.
One of my favorite activities is having my students pretend to run businesses. They will all take turns. They will divide up into two teams. One of them will run a business, and the other will have to buy things from it. Both teams will get quite a bit of play money, and they will have to make transactions. They actually learn to keep track of the money they spend, the money they make, and calculate the difference.
I always think about how much of a difference this will make when they get involved in business. A lot of people don't really understand the value of money until they get their first job, and many people don't get it even then. By using play money, however, I am giving my students a head start on things. Young people get taken advantage of so often that it is important to learn a little bit of numerical reasoning right off the bat.
Of course, adults even like to play with money. Witness the popularity of Monopoly. Of course it is a fascinating game when you are a kid, but why should it maintain such fascination for adults? The answer, of course, is the allure playing games for money. The continuing popularity of the lottery shows that, even if the odds are small, people will play games if there is money involved.
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