When I was a little girl, I used to love playing with my sister.  We used to play imaginary games like "library", where we would take all of our books and make up check out cards and little pockets.  We would then pretend to check the books out of the library.  We didn't realize it at the time, but we were actually learning important life skills.


Here in Ontario, play based activities are still a vital part of our classrooms.  Walk into any kindergarten classroom and you will see a house center, a store or maybe even a vets office.  When you think of these type activities you don't often think of older students benefiting from them.  In the special education classroom they are even more important as a fun and easy to implement teaching tool. These activities teach important life skills in fun and engaging ways.



One fun way to teach money skills is by creating a pretend store.  Since many students are home right now, this is an easy activity that you could implement at home.

Setting up a school or home store is easy as you probably have all you need readily available.

* some food items such as cookies, granola bars, water and pop
* some paper and a pen to make price tags, sticky paper works well
* some money, you could use both paper and coins depending on what you are working on
* a cash register or container for the money
* a desire to go shopping



The easiest items to start with are the very obvious.  Snacks that your students want on a regular basis such as apples, granola bars, water, pop and cookies are always big hits.  I always price the less healthy items more and the healthier items less.  To add an extra layer to this activity have the children earn their money by doing chores around the classroom or around the house.  This is a great way for them to earn the money to buy their snack.



All that's left to do, is go shopping!

Have fun.

Mandy
A Special Kind of Class

by A Special Kind of Class