by Admin | Sep 8, 2013 | Coding
Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of resources to teach HTML online. What is a little harder to find are resources to teach kids HTML (and CSS) that are simple and appealing. Since it is a relatively easy thing to learn and a good way to get kids interested in programming in general, we’ve found some really great websites, books and a few free online games that are perfect for teaching kids will get them building websites in no time at all.
Best Websites to Help Teach Kids HTML
There are lots of great websites available that are perfect for beginners; the hard part is narrowing it down. Some of the following sites have really good video lessons and tutorials that are okay for kids (younger kids will probably need parental assistance going through the material on these sites).
- IPL2 for Kids has some easy and fun lessons to teach your kids HTML. This would be a good place to start as it talks about what HTML is and what are the rules, lots of stuff about different tags, how to link, CSS, and more.
- Learning HTML for Kids has 12 easy lessons designed specifically for kids ages 10 and up. It is a step by step tutorial that is very well done.
- HTML Goodies has another set of tutorials that is a great place to start. It goes into much more detail than Learning HTML for Kids but the information is laid out very clearly and this is a great resource.
- Another option is Code School. Code School is an online learning platform that teaches a variety of programming and web design skills. Courses range from beginner to advanced levels and you get to earn rewards and badges as you learn. The courses use screencasts and interactive exercises and each course has at least five levels.
- Code Pupil has an interactive HTML tutorial that is free and easy to do. You do a few lessons and then watch a video and are then asked to do another bit of code. It’s pretty good but if a younger child is doing this tutorial they will probably need a bit of adult guidance.
- Code Academy (not to be confused with Code School or Code Pupil) is a very cool site that lets you learn coding interactively along with other people. It is very easy to get going on it and it is super fun as well.
- W3Schools is a very good HTML resource. It’s simple it looks good and is very clear and easy to use.
HTML Books for Kids
There are a number of books that are aimed at kids to help them make websites, but the ones that we found are a bit old and out of date. If you do want to get an HTML book we think your best bet would be to get a general beginner HTML book that you can work through with your kids. There are lots of choices as far as HTML books go and a lot of them have great reviews, but you want to get something that is geared to the beginner where the writing style isn’t too confusing for kids. The books that we have gone through the reviews of and had a look at ourselves and think would be a great choice for kids are:
Free HTML Games
We found a couple of online games around to help teach kids a bit of HTML. If you know of any others let us know and we would love to add them to our list.
Sources:
- StackOverflow
- Amazon
- Webmonkey
by Admin | Sep 5, 2013 | Education
The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way is a fascinating book by Amanda Ripley, that sets out to find out why the United States is doing so poorly on the standardized PISA test (which is given to 15-year-olds around the world and tests them on reading, mathematics, and science.)
Ripley studies the education systems of a few of the countries that had the best PISA results ( Korea, Finland, and Poland), and documents the experiences of American exchange students in each of the nations. She finds several key points that these countries focus on, to create a top education system.
1. The top-performing countries believe in academic rigor. Teachers, politicians, parents, and kids in these countries agree that school should be about mastering complex educational content. Students are expected to take school seriously, and there are high expectations from teachers, parents, and the students themselves about what the students can accomplish. Comparing the American education system, Ripley writes of several disturbing examples, where education boards seem almost afraid to encourage students to aim for a high academic standard. These boards are scared that a large percentage of the students just aren’t up for the challenge, and will be destroyed by failing.
2. Teachers need to be the best and brightest of society and need to be highly trained. Only the most promising students get into Finnish teacher’s colleges, where they spend six years studying. Students and parents highly respect teachers because they know how difficult it is to become a teacher. Getting into a teacher training school in Finland is as prestigious as getting into medical school in the U.S. Ripley provides lots of examples that prove that when the teachers are highly educated, the quality of the teaching goes up.
3. Factors that people assume to be important to student outcomes, like government spending per student and private education, had little effect on academic performance. Poland is a particularly good example of the lesson that more money doesn’t necessarily make a great school. After education reforms in Poland, polish students outperformed the U.S kids in math and science despite spending less than half what the U.S did per child.
4. Investment in classroom technology doesn’t equal better academic outcomes. Of the schools profiled in this book, there was little or no technology available in the classrooms. Many of the most successful education systems don’t even allow students to use a calculator in class.
5. Failure wasn’t considered shameful, but a normal part of learning. Students who were having difficulty with schoolwork were given the best help available until they caught up. In Poland, students were graded on a 1 to 5 system (lowest grade being 1, and the top a 5.) An American exchange student in Poland observed that when students’ exam scores were announced in front of the class, no one ever got a 5, and none of the students seemed too bothered about it. “If the work was hard, routine failure was the only way to learn.” Ripley uses examples to compare that to the American system and shows that many educators believe failure in American schools is demoralizing, and to be avoided at all costs.
6. Math skills are vital in the modern world, and more value must be placed on math education in schools. Math is a very strong predictor of future earnings, with math skills becoming more and more valuable in the global economy. Ripley laments the pervasive idea in the U.S. that math is an innate ability, and that you’re either good at it or you aren’t. As a counterpoint, the education superpowers treat math as a skill that is developed through hard work and perseverance. These countries believe that with the right teachers, who have strong math training themselves, children’s math scores will improve. This is because there is a strong relationship between a teacher’s ability in math and the student’s results.
A Finnish teacher needs a master’s degree in math to teach. In North America, many teachers have liberal arts-based backgrounds, and they aren’t necessarily as strong in math. Because math lessons build upon what has come before, if a student doesn’t understand a particular concept, it’s easy to fall behind quickly and become discouraged. In high performing countries, children are not allowed to give up on math, as they are in American schools. It is regarded as a skill that must be learned.
7. Teaching higher-order thinking and reasoning is critical. The Smartest Kids in the World spends a lot of time stressing the importance of math in schools, and reminding the reader that math isn’t just math: “Math is a language of logic. It is a disciplined, organized way of thinking. There is a right answer; there are rules that must be followed.” Since more and more jobs are requiring these kinds of skills, kids need to be able to adapt and be prepared for the modern job market.
8. No education system is perfect, but they are dynamic and can change quickly. Ripley writes, “Everywhere I went, in every country, people complained about their education system.” She says this is a universal truth. Of the three countries examined in this book, some lessons can be taken from all of them about changes that can be made. One of the big lessons is that it’s possible to make radical changes to education systems that will improve student outcomes in a relatively short period. Poland is an excellent example of this. Despite high rates of crime and poverty, the government rolled out dramatic education reforms in 1999. The PISA tests were able to show the test scores from the old education system in Poland in 2000, and then after the reforms were in place in 2003. In only three years, the PISA scores went up dramatically for the Polish students, to the point that they were able to catch up to all of the developed countries in the world and surpass the U.S. within a few years.
9. What parents do at home to help their kids matter more than what parents do at school to help their kids. The common idea in North American society is that the more involved a parent is with their child’s school, the better the child will do at school. Ripley, however, found that volunteering or fundraising for the school has little or no effect on children’s PISA scores. Her research showed that what’s more important is very simple: reading to kids every day when they are young and then engaging them in conversation as they get older, about things that matter, and will get them thinking. Getting kids to become strong readers and thinkers is strongly influenced by what the parents do at home, not at school.
10. There is more than one way to become an education superpower. Finland, Poland, and Korea all have very different systems. Finland’s approach appears to be ideal, with the key being the highly trained and carefully selected teachers. Poland’s approach has some great lessons on how to make dramatic changes to education quickly. Korea’s system, despite its exceptional PISA scores, is probably not the one that other countries should be aiming to emulate. Ripley goes into great detail about what a typical Korean student’s day is like, and it seems pretty horrible. Kids attend a regular school for lessons, but after school, when most American students would head home, many Korean students stay until about 9 p.m. and clean the school, study, take extra exam prep classes and watch online test prep videos. After they leave school, they go to private tutors until 11 p.m. These kids are living in the classrooms for up to 12 hours a day, and they do nothing but study. Even the Minister of Education in Korea doesn’t think the Korean system is deserving of all the praise it’s getting from other countries.
If you are interested in education and what it takes to make a great system, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way is a great read and well worth picking up.
***The appendix of the book includes advice for on what to look for when choosing a school:
- Visit the school and look at the students to see what they are doing (e.g., are they engaged)?
- Talk to the students about what they do, not what they like or which teacher is nice.
- Ignore shiny gadgets. They are nice, but only if properly used (e.g., over-reliance on calculators or spell checking don’t help).
- Talk to parents to see if they approve of the school.
- Talk to the principal of the school and ask about how they choose their teachers, how they improve their teachers, and how they measure success.
by Admin | Jul 24, 2013 | Languages
If you have been looking for a few different ways to help your kids learn to speak Japanese, we have found lots of great stuff that will get your kids speaking it in no time at all!
Since Japanese is generally considered to be one of the more challenging languages to learn because of the need to memorize thousands of characters, the more exposure you can give your kids to it, the better, so we have listed the very best DVDs, books, apps, sites, and free online games to help your children learn.
DVDs and Videos
An easy way to give your little one a bit of exposure to a new language is by having them watch a DVD or an online video. Here are a few that we had a look at:
- Little Pim is an excellent option if you are looking for a video for kids ages 0-5. These videos begin each lesson with a short animated cartoon featuring a panda followed by live-action footage of children doing everyday activities. The box set it introduces over 180 words and phrases for everyday activities. DVDs are themed on “eating and drinking, “wake up smiling,” and “playtime.”
- Dino Lingo for Kids is a DVD based learning system that also includes CDs, Books, Posters, and Flashcards for Children who are learning a new language. It isn’t cheap ($100+), but it is generally very well-reviewed.
- Japanese for Children: Go! Go! Nihongo! I can’t find any reviews of this DVD anywhere (not generally a good sign), but you can view a preview of it here to see if it might be your kind of thing.
- International Baby is another DVD that doesn’t have much in the way of reviews and seems to be available only as an import. If you are looking for a DVD for a baby, you could also try Bilingual Baby. They both seem to be pretty similar.
- Japanese for Kids doesn’t have the greatest reviews, a lot of reviewers mentioned that the narrator mispronounces words and the main boy mumbles his lines (not the best thing for a language DVD), but if you are interested in this DVD check out this preview here before buying.
Read More: 19 Fun Resources to Help Kids Learn World Geography
Apps
When you are teaching children a new language, they learn the most when they are having fun. A good place to start is with some of the great apps that are available for kids; apps are an easy, cheap, and fun way to expose children to a new language. There are quite a few apps to choose from; here are a few that we checked out:
- Learn Japanese Mindsnack’s language apps are a bit of a favorite around here; they look great, have great content, and work well. This app has eight games designed to build essential vocabulary & conversation skills, and you are also able to switch between three Japanese writing systems: kana, kanji, and romaji. To help with memorization, each lesson contains up to 20 words & phrases along with matching audio clips from a professional native speaker. You can download the first lesson for free and then upgrade to access all fifty lessons if you like what you see.
- Kids Japanese is designed for ages 3 to 9 years old. This app helps kids learn the language through interactive flashcards and matching games. Children will learn Hiragana (平仮名), which is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet. They will also learn basic daily vocabulary in categories such as animals, body parts, colors, food, fruits, insects, vegetables, wild animals, and weather.
- Children’s book with stickers:Momotaro This iPad app is the new version of the old tale “Momotaro” which includes elements like playing with stickers and also incorporates the original characters.
- LET’S START LEARNING JAPANESE HIRAGANA! is designed for beginners and young ones to begin to learn Hiragana.
- HIRAGANA KARUTA CARDS is an iPad app that has a simple card game designed to learn Hiragana characters. All you need to do is listen to the card reading, and pick its correct pair from the batch of picture cards. This app is designed specifically for toddlers and kids who just started learning elementary words and phrases.
- Kanji Workbook for 1st Grade is an app that helps students learn 80 kanji that are taught in the 1st grade of Japan’s elementary schools. In this app, kids learn correct stroke order and it has many illustrations and examples to help students discover the meaning of characters.
Language Learning Programs/Websites/Games
Here are our favorite learning website and programs for children:
- Duolingo is one of the best websites for kids to learn a lot of different languages.
- Nickelodeon Japan has all your favorite Nick shows in Japanese.
- Digital Dialects is a Flash-based animation site that has games for learning 60 different languages. These games help the learning of phrases, numbers, spelling, verb conjugation, and alphabets.
- My Japanese Coach for Nintendo DS lets you compare your pronunciation of the sounds unique with native speakers. It also teaches you how to write Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters using the DS stylus. There are twelve different mini-games that test your grasp of the structured lessons.
Books
- Let’s Learn Japanese Picture Dictionary by Marlene Goodman. If you are looking for a picture dictionary, this one is probably your best bet. It has 1,550 commonly taught essential words.
- My First Hiragana Activity Book by Yuko Green is an easy to follow guide, with lots of vocabulary and cute pictures supporting each hiragana. Unlike most hiragana workbooks, which you use once and throw away, this book can be used to practice vocabulary words long after the hiragana has been mastered.
- Jimi’s Book of Japanese by Peter X. Takahashi and David Voggenthaler is another book with really strong reviews that is great for a child who is learning the language. I don’t think I can top this description of the book by the publisher: “Put your kutsu on, grab your keitai denwa, and join Jimi, Akiko, and Robotto-san on an exciting insider’s journey to learning basic Japanese. Along the way, you’ll discover the secrets of using (o)hashi, how to find a unagi shop-even how to practice ojigi through eye-popping illustrations, and simple explanations. Designed to appeal to a wide age range and a variety of attention spans, Jimi’s Book of Japanese is for everyone who is learning and for anyone who has an inquisitive brain. Read, write, pronounce. Trace, fliplaugh! This friendly book’s Triple Bubble Learning System(TM) makes the 46 most important hiragana stick in your brain. Prepare your brain!”
Books with Audio CD
- Teach Me Japanese & More Japanese by Judy Mahoney for ages 2 to 12 years has a book & CD that introduces the language to children through songs and stories. There are 36 songs to sing-along and learn.
- Japanese Celebrations: Cherry Blossoms, Festivals and Flying Carp (Sing and Learn) by Tazuko Inui and Selina Yoon is a collection of favorite songs that bring to mind images of seasons, festivals, holidays, and the spirit of the people of Japan. Each of 22 traditional and contemporary melodies and songs is written in Kana (Hiragana and Katakana), the romaji, and the English translation. The book includes a pronunciation guide, English-Japanese glossary, and instructional and cultural notes.
Free Online Sites with Games
I couldn’t find any sites with fun games for kids, but you can try the sites listed below. The games are not specifically designed for young students but beginners in general, so I think that could be useful for slightly older children.
So that’s it for now, hope you found something useful. If you have any great resources to help kids learn this kind of tricky language, we’d love to hear from you.
Read More: 10 Takeaways from the book The Smartest Kids in the World
photo credit: ajari via photopin cc
by Admin | Jun 19, 2013 | Music
If your little ones love to sing and you’ve been wondering about some ways to teach your kids to sing in tune at home, we have some great resources for parents to check out.
You might want to keep in mind that there are various opinions on when and if children should be taught to sing. Some professional voice teachers don’t like to introduce very young children to sing for fear of damaging their voices, while others think this theory is out of date, and it is fine to begin to teach children how to use their voice. However you feel about it, you can always check out some of the great online singing lessons, mp3s, DVDs, books, sites, and apps we found that can help children learn to sing and then make up your mind.
Free Online Singing Lessons for Kids
There are some excellent free online singing lessons available at Kathie Hill Music. They are fun and easy for kids to watch and learn some proper techniques.
Or check out this short lesson on pitch from Kids Music Workshop.
Kids Vocal Lessons on CD or MP3
Another option would be to try Voice Lessons To Go for Kids! It is the first volume of Ariella Vaccarino’s popular Voice Lessons To Go series designed for Kids. The volume begins with advice on healthy singing, including words on posture, breathing, and diction. Vocal warm-ups follow in patterns broken up into three separate vocalizes 1. singing numbers (123), 2. singing syllables (la), and 3. singing solfege (do re mi). Musical terms such as major scales, chords, octaves, staccato, and legato are sung through and explained.
Singing Lessons for Kids Course/DVD
- If you are looking for a DVD course, check out Singing Made Easy. This program is designed to help beginners learn the proper way to sing. There is a “teaching point” for each song to help the singer learn the most essential things. The students can sing along with the voice tracks until they know the pieces and then with the accompaniment tracks only.
- You could also try Teaching Kids to Sing DVD that can help you teach your children all the foundations from Posture, Breathing, Tone, Rhythm, Diction, and more. The cast includes Chris & Carole Beatty and a group of children ages 5 to 13. The CD contains all the music used on the two DVDs in two versions: With vocals and track only. This allows your young singers to learn and then perform the songs.
Books to help kids learn to sing
- Songs Children Can Sing has the lyrics, melody, and chord symbols for eight songs (Getting to Know You /Happy Talk/ I Whistle a Happy Tune/My Favorite Things /The Sound of Music/Take Me Out to the Ball Game /This Land Is Your Land /Tomorrow.) The CD contains demos for listening and separate backing tracks so you can sing along. The CD is playable on any CD player but also enhanced so Mac & PC users can adjust the recording to any pitch without changing the tempo.
- Singing Lessons for Little Singers: Level A – Very Young Beginner Series for children ages 4 to 7 teaches professional singing techniques and fundamental musicianship skills. It includes topics like breath support vocal registration (high/low voice), vowels and diction, resonate tone quality, intonation (singing in tune), solfege scale and intervals, beat and rhythm, and reading music. Singing Lessons for Little Singers: A 3-in-1 Voice, Ear-Training and Sight-Singing Method for Children by the same author is also highly recommended.
- Sing After Me has echo songs to help young vocalists learn to sing with practically perfect pitch and deliberate diction. The book includes a sing-a-long and demonstration CD, reproducible student worksheets for classroom use, and movement, art, and language activities for each song. Vocalists can echo the leader provided on the CD or sing the melodies using the accompaniment tracks. These melodies will help young singers improve vocal independence, pitch, and diction. Ages 6-12.
- The Book of Pitch Exploration for ages 3 to 7 years. This book allows children to discover these sounds through ideas, poems, stories, and songs that invite vocal participation from all involved. These fun activities are also excellent vocal warm-ups.
Websites to Help Kids Learn to Sing
- Teaching Kids to Sing specializes in educational music resources for early childhood and elementary-aged children: ready-to-use songs, games, and teaching resources you can download immediately and use with your children today.
- Sing Up has resources and ideas to make singing part of every child’s learning. It is primarily aimed at schools, but parents can also use some of the resources available to teach kids to sing at home.
- Music Theory has an excellent exercise for ear training.
Learn to Sing Apps for Kids
We couldn’t find many apps to teach singing that was explicitly designed for kids, but there are some fantastic apps out there for adults that can help improve kids singing as well. Here are some of our favorites:
- Sing Harmonies Free is a great app that is helpful to teaching kids to sing harmony by playing and muting individual voices while playing 4- part vocal arrangements of Lean On Me, Teach Your Children, and Proud Mary.
- Staraoke was one of the few great apps we found that kids can use to help improve their singing. It is an iPad game where a player controls a character on the screen with a picture of his/her voice. The Staraoke software recognizes the singer’s pitch. If you sing correctly, the character stays on the path, and you ramp up points. This game comes with three popular kids’ songs, “Brother John”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and “Old MacDonald had a farm”.
- VocalizeU Lite is a singer essential training kit including live vocal experts a vocal recorder, vocal journal, pitch and ear training programs, and adjustable warm-ups.
- Voice Builder has its users vocalize to a tone that is always in perfect pitch. volume & pitch guides, over 20 voice-building sessions for both male and female singers
- Voice Tutor helps you determine your particular vocal challenge by having you sing scales and then listening to four different examples. These four examples demonstrate the four different voice types, making it easy for you to determine what your particular vocal challenge is. This app also has four sets of exercises (each containing over an hour of lessons), a pitch meter to check your pitch as you sing through your lessons, a full vocal warm-up, and also a breathing exercise section to help you significantly increase your breath control.
- Do Re Mi Ear Training and Voice Training are great apps to show how to teach kids to sing on pitch. They have tons of customizable settings that let you work on intervals, relative pitch, perfect pitch, and use a variety of notation types.
by Admin | Jun 11, 2013 | Life Skills
There are SO many useful resources for parents who want to teach their kids about money management that there is no excuse for raising a child who can’t responsibly handle money (it that is what you are into). There are hundreds of books, websites, apps, games, and even specially designed piggy banks that will help parents create a super financially responsible offspring. Since there is so much out there parents can use, we have picked out the best stuff to help teach kids about money management.
Books
The younger kids are, when you start teaching them about money, the easier it will be to get them comfortable talking about and dealing with money as they become adults. An easy way to do this is to start them off with some good books; here are some of our favorites:
For Kids Ages 3-7
These are great storybooks for younger kids with simple messages about the importance of saving, and learning the difference between wants versus needs.
- Little Critter: Just Saving My Money Little Critter learns the value of money, how to make good decisions with money, and how to have a sense of self-pride through his hard work and planning. After earning money by doing chores, Little Critter’s dad takes him to the bank to open his first savings account. This is a great book to help introduce the idea of banking and saving money to young children.
- The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble with Money To earn coins for the Astro Bear video game, Brother and Sister Bear find ways to work for money. This book helps teach kids the importance of saving money, interest, and the concepts of goods and services.
- A Chair for My Mother This story is about a family that lost all of their furniture in a house fire. The family members decide to save coins to buy a new chair for their home. When the jar is full, they go out and buy a beautiful chair for the family to enjoy. This book teaches several money concepts, including counting, saving, making choices, banking, and wants and needs.
- Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, is a fun book about a boy who is given a dollar and all of the temptations he faces trying not to spend the dollar. It’s an excellent book to start getting younger kids to think about the value of money and some of the difficulties that children have in saving money.
- Pretty Penny Sets Up Shop A young girl creates a “Small Mall” from things in her attic to sell to raise money for her grandmothers surprise celebration. An excellent book about earning cash through hard work and also suitable lessons on counting, and saving.
For Kids Ages 8-13
- Lunch Money, a 12-year-old boy, is obsessed with trying to earn money any way that he can, including doing things like collecting bottles, extra chores, etc. He eventually gets the idea to sell comics to his schoolmates, but the principle finds out about it and bans him from selling them at school. This book has good lessons on business, making money, and what it takes to get even a simple business off the ground.
- Money Hungry is an award-winning novel that deals with a young 13-year-old girl, Raspberry Hill, who lives in the projects with her mother. They were homeless at one time, and now Raspberry focuses on money as the source of comfort and security. This is an excellent book to show children the role money can play in a person’s life.
- A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money This addition to the popular Smart Girls Guide format shows girls the ins and outs of money. It includes sections with 101 money-making ideas, bank accounts, and interest, having a job, keeping track of money, and spending money wisely.
- Growing Money: A Complete Investing Guide for Kids is a guide that explains in kid-friendly terms all about savings accounts, bonds, stocks, and even mutual funds. This is an excellent book for children who want to put their money in the stock market because it also covers topics from dividends to how to read financial papers.
- Money Sense for Kids shows kids how to get bank accounts, write checks, use an A.T.M. card, learn about stocks, and start to invest on their own. The author offers ideas on how kids can earn, save, budget, and invest their money. She also presents puzzles and games that focus on the theme of money.
For Teens
- The Complete Guide to Personal Finance: For Teenagers shows teens how to get and manage credit, how to make and stick to a budget, how to save for college, how to determine their needs versus their wants, how to pay for a car, how to finance college, how to manage risk, how to open a bank account, how to write a check, how to balance a checkbook, how to avoid the pressures of consumerism, and how to avoid financial mistakes. This book also teaches teens about investment options, taxes, checks, debit cards, credit cards, and essential budget tips.
- The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens helps teens understand the basics of investing and how easy it is to start investing on their own. They go over how to save and spend wisely.
For Parents
- Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees has exercises and concrete examples on everything from responsible budgeting to understanding the difference between “want” and “need” for children of every age.
- Financial Peace Junior is a whole financial program tailored for children ages 3-12 that is designed to teach kids how to handle money. It has ideas for activities, and age-appropriate chores, games and “toys”, an activity book, and dry erase boards to track their progress.
Online Games
- Rich Kid Smart Kid is a free website that provides financial lessons and games for kids starring two mice as the main characters; for grades K-12, and divided by grades.
- H.I.P. Pocket Change is the U.S. Mint’s free website for kids that feature games, art activities, and puzzles, as well as a history of the mint.
- Sense and Dollars is an interactive site with money games.
- Financial Football Visa and the National Football League have teamed up to help teach financial concepts with Financial Football. This fast-paced, interactive game engages students while teaching them money management skills. Teams compete by answering financial questions to earn yardage and score touchdowns.
Websites
Again, there is no shortage of websites to help teach kids about money. These are the most popular:
- The Mint has a kids section that provides necessary information about starting a business, earning money, spending it wisely, and saving and investing.
- Practical Money Skills is an online resource for educators, parents, and students focused on financial literacy and education. This site is for all ages of kids and is run by VISA USA.
- Sense and Dollars is a site for kids that teaches kids how to earn, save, spend, and budget.
- BizKids has kids teaching kids about money and business using shows and online games.
- Money as you Grow has 20 things kids need to know to live financially smart lives, developed by the Youth Subcommittee of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability.
- PBS Kids It’s My Life is a great site money site for kids; the section on money management is incredibly useful.
Online Allowance Trackers Apps/Websites
Teach your child that money can be enjoyed by having kids save up and purchase things for themselves by using an online allowance tracker. Here are a few to choose from:
- ThreeJars is a website that helps kids sort allowance money into virtual save, spend, and share “jars.” Puts allowance online, so it’s’s easy for your kids to track it, teaching them responsible money management
- Moneytrail is a free, online system for monitoring allowance and credit between kids and parents.
- Bankaroo is a family project with a website and an app version to help children learn how to manage their savings.
- FamZoo is an online virtual family bank. Parents use FamZoo with their kids to teach good money management habits and introduce them to charitable giving.
- A+ Allowance is an allowance app where you set your kid’s jobs for the week and decide how much they will earn.
- Savings Spree is an app with games that teaches kids how the daily lifestyle choices that they make can add up to significant savings or big expenses, depending on how they choose to spend (or not spend) their money. Savings Spree shows kids that they can save their money for short term goals, spend wisely by making more frugal decisions, donate to others, or invest money so it will grow to meet future needs. This is brought to you by the same group that does the Money Savvy Piggybank.
Videos/Webisodes to Teach Kids About Money
Sesame Street series “For Me, For You, For Later” A bilingual multimedia program that helps families share experiences and develop necessary financial skills Teaches lessons in value, spending, sharing, saving and more
The Secret Millionaires Club is an animated series that features Warren Buffett as a mentor to a group of entrepreneurial kids whose adventures lead them to encounter financial and business problems to solve. The program teaches the basics of good economic decision making and some of the basic lessons of starting a business. The animated series has 26 online short webisodes and 2 T.V. specials.
Money Games for Kids
- The Allowance® Game helps kids ages 5-11 years learn how to handle money, make change, identify money values, add & subtract money.
- Learning Resources Money Bags A Coin Value Game has kids earning money while winding along a cartoon path. Money is made by landing on a square labeled with a practical chore, such as setting the table, or an entrepreneurial task, such as a lemonade stand.
Piggybanks
These piggybanks are a great idea to get kids to visualize where their money is going. The same concept can easily be made at home with a few jars or containers from your recycle bin or the dollar store and a few labels.
- Money Savvy Pig is a divided piggy bank that has four compartments that can be emptied separately: Spending, Saving, Donating, and Investing.
- Moonjar Classic Moneybox: Save, Spend, Share is a tool to help change how children develop a basic understanding of good money habits by being responsible for dividing their money into compartments dedicated to saving, sharing, and spending.
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Sources
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