Coin Sorting

Through reading some blogs that I follow I found out that April is National Financial Literacy Month. Alex has had piggy banks since she's been born. She loves putting coins into them. She has three at home, one at her Nana and Papa's house, one at her Nona's house, and her Titi has an account for the kids where she deposits money for birthdays and Christmas for them. 

The other day I noticed the banks were really full and thought we should get out the coins becauseI wanted to count them. I was curious about how much she had in there. I know I can (and we will) take the coins to a bank that has a Penny Arcade and they will count the coins for us. I thought it was a neat lesson though for Alex to see how all of those coins that we give her when added together can equal a large amount of money. She's only 3.5 and already she'll see something on TV and say "I want that for my birthday or for Christmas!!" She's never had spending money of her own but as she gets older she'll continue to want certain things and my goal is to have two banks: a save bank and a spend bank. When I give her coins to put into her bank 90 percent of it will go into the SAVE bank but then she'll also be able to put coins into the spend bank so she will have spending money later. Of course my husband, who is an CPA said she should just SAVE but I think having some money of her own to spend will be good for her, especially if she ever gets an allowance (when she is older of course!!!) 

But for now, we just sorted the coins, compared them, and reviewed the names and how much they are worth by singing some money songs from Dr. Jean and ones I used to use in my classroom of first graders. 

In her banks she had a total of $103.56! I was amazed at how much had accumulated over the 3 years! Of course she has no idea just how much that is and that is why I am trying to teach her money sense now.