Monopoly and Junior Monopoly - great learning tools for kids

Parents are always looking for ways to teach kids the value of money, and have a variety of tools at hand from allowances to rules about how any money, from allowances to cash gifts should be spent.

For example, you can agree to split the money evenly between

• a long-term savings account;
• a "half-and-half" account, where the child and parents each contribute half the cost of a special item purchase; and
• a "free fund", where the child is in charge with how the money is to be spent.

An old stand-by board game, now of course available in electronic form, is Monopoly (with Junior Monopoly for the younger kids). There's a lot to be learned in this game, from simply counting by ones, fives, tens and so on to ideas of long-term investment vs short-term gain and even to seeing how keeping a "rainy day" fund might just come in handy in case of emergency (or jail).

If you've lost all your Monopoly money, you can go to the official Monopoly site to print more out -- but no cheating!

categories children's learning games kids sites educational fun homeschool

Fish Tycoon - for kids and kids at heart

Fish Tycoon is a virtual fish breeding game, which you download onto your computer. The object is to breed and cross breed fish until you find the 7 Magic Fish and solve the genetic puzzle.

You buy supplies like meds, eggs and special plants and then sell some of your fish in your virtual pet store.

These are your fish, and like real fish, you need to take care of them. Feed them, cure them if they get sick, breed them and make lots of babies!

Some general tips:

• Use the species button frequently. Once you put a fish in the small isolation tank you can click this button to get family tree information as well as a suggested price.
  

• To get money quickly, figure out which fish command the highest prices and breed them exclusively. Try to get the second tank as soon as possible so you can get two breeding batches going.

• Do not overfeed your fish!
  

• Don't get the unusual or rare fish eggs until you have finished researching food and environment. You will also need to have the heater and aeration system in your tanks.

NOTE TO PARENTS: If a fish develops a disease, the player must decide whether to attempt to cure it or euthanize it. Obviously, this is not a game for very young kids, but it is a great way to introduce a child to the realities of what's entailed in keeping fish.

categorieschildren's learning games kids sites educational fun homeschool

Playing With Stocks

Wally The Stock Ticker Game isn't so much a game as it is a simple way to learn about stocks. By clicking on the name of the stock from a drop down menu, you can find out the company's symbol, its current price, the daily highs and lows, and so on. Each of these facts is prefaced by a short explanation of why you should know this information, and asks how you think you would use it.

When I clicked on Today's Low for KO (that's the stock symbol for Coca Cola), it read

Your stock in Coca Cola went down to $43.82 for a little while today. Does that get you worried?

It shouldn't. People trade stock all day long. It goes up and down and at the end of the day, it takes a rest for the night.

This could be a fun introduction to paper investing.

categorieschildren's learning games kids sites educational fun homeschool