One of the things that I am intentional with in our home schooling is teaching my kids about money. Growing up, the kind of “education” I received on money was very limited to having “to finish school, get a good job, live below your means and save money in the bank” kind of thing.
And I don’t want that for my kids.
My eldest is considering going into corporate work to learn how an animation company works from the inside. From where I’m standing, and based on his personality, there’s a good chance he may stay in the corporate world for good, but who knows? I could be wrong. What’s important is that he must also learn to manage his finances properly and to learn not to be overly dependent on his corporate pay check, and figure out other ways to generate income.
Image source: Unsplash
Besides, the world is fast changing. Life is no longer as we knew it when I was a child, when we were told that success can be found in corporate careers. There are now bigger and better possibilities beyond the traditional desk job.
And then, there are the passive income generators.
Money Games and Money Matters
Because the topic on money is so important to us, any material or resources that can help us teach our kids about money is something we always consider to look at. This is how we found Money Games on Mortgage Calculator website.
Money Games offers tons of games that has to do with work, business, and how money works in the business industry. I scrolled and found some really simple ones like Cash Back and Grocery Cashier.
Cash Back
Cash Back is all about counting change. You simply count the amount of change that you need to give back to the customer and click the corresponding bills and coins to do that.
It may seem very basic and it is, but counting money properly is also foundational to any business.
I once worked at a popular fast food chain and the crew assigned to man the cash registers have to undergo some sort of check with the manager before they can log out. The money in the cash register must be the same as the total in sales receipts. If they come up short on the money or if they exceed, they have to sign something that says they have received warning, and can get suspended if they keep it up.
This is one way of avoiding stealing among the crew and preserve integrity of the business.
Very simple, very upfront, and it’s great material to use to teach kids how to count money when they make purchases, or when they try their hands in businesses (Classic example is the traditional lemonade stand).
Grocery Cashier
The other game I played was the Grocery Cashier. It’s a little like an expounded version of Cash Back, except that in this one, you play the cashier and add up all the customers’ purchases.
In Grocery Cashier, you get to learn about vouchers and calculating discounts, and I think that it’s a good opportunity to teach my kids about marketing and how to use vouchers to benefit your business.
My boss, who is a business coach, discusses this with our clients, so I picked up a few things on it. But I think that having a visual on it can make it more interesting for the kids.
Chocolate Shop
The third game I played was Chocolate Shop.
At the Chocolate Shop, you play the server who has to attend to different customers who come at different times. You have to take their orders and be able to serve them before the timers run out.
I saw another game that’s similar, but harder. I think it’s called the Pizza Shop. It’s a bit more challenging because you don’t just have to serve one thing, you have to go to two stations to pick up the orders – one of the dough, the other for the fruits, on top of having to take the customers’ orders.
These two games are all about time management and organisation.
If you don’t have a proper service system, you will end up with unsatisfied customers who will yell at you or leave without waiting for their purchase. Your business loses money because you have a consumable product that is not getting paid for.
I asked my kids to choose games to play and here’s what they say about them:
Merge Blocks, Lego City Adventures, and Hero Elementary Treehouse Trouble
Lukas, 14, who played Merge Blocks and Lego City Adventures, says “I think that both games I played were teaching about location, space, and structures of both the neighbourhood and downtown. Merge Blocks has you merge different homes of the same type to make a larger house, freeing up space for more homes; and Lego City adventures has you expand to more areas like boroughs, again freeing up space, and allowing for more places to build on increasing value. Lego City Adventures also encourages you to let your money grow by gaining revenue from workspaces and restaurants, thus allowing you to earn more money.”
Pablo, 17, who played Lego City Adventures and Kingdom Wars, has this to say about the games, “Both games teach money management. In Lego city Adventures, you don’t really need to strategically place your buildings. It’s more on filling the area with buildings to unlock the next area. What they do focus on is which buildings you place down. You have to pay attention to how much each building earns. Some may earn more than others. To build any building, the game requires you to dig for materials. It costs to dig so you have to be wise with your digging because you have a limit to how much dirt you can dig before the game stops you.”
Our youngest son, Judah, also played Merge City and Hero Elementary Treehouse Trouble which he says was a pretty fun game to play. He adds, “the levels were not hard. There are two different level types, for one of them the goal is to keep the roof up while using all the parts given to you. While the other type is to recycle/remove all the required parts while keeping the roof up.”
There wasn’t much about money in this game, but I think it’s critical thinking that’s being developed here for young learners. Much like in coding. I remember this site that we like so much when the kids were young and they played games that didn’t seem to teach so much about coding, except that it was. It was building the foundation on critical thinking and analogy, and producing solutions for problems, which is a very valuable and dire skill for any entrepreneur.
Investment and Business games
As I scrolled the Money Games page, I came across games on NFTs, Bitcoins and Stocks.
I tried an NFT game but I didn’t really understand it fully yet. But I am planning to check out these games and see how we can use them for our homeschooling, after all, these are newer concepts on earning money. I, myself, need to update on on these things. I was asked once if I’m open to putting my art on NFT, but I didn’t know what that was then and I didn’t want to get into something I didn’t understand.
I have a rich friend who lets her daughter spend hours on a simulation game on bitcoin. The girl earns some sort of E-cash which she uses to buy online accessories and stuff. I think there’s something there. My friend is not rich for nothing, you know what I mean? She’s one of the few people I know who has a sharp eye on income generators and actually grew her husband’s earnings and turn them into money-making businesses.
I’m not sure what game that was, I should ask her! But for the meantime, I think there’s so much material on Money Games to use and learn from for our kids. It’s a useful place to start.
Money Games can be accessed using any gadgets, including laptops, tablets and mobiles. All you need is a stable internet connection.