First up I sat down with the kids and ran through the sorts of jobs that could be done in our house. Simple little jobs like washing the dishes, mopping the floors and emptying the house bins into the council ones outside. Alanah asked if she could have the job of making everyone’s lunch so I got her to take their orders down on paper first before making the sandwiches (see look how I snuck a bit of writing and spelling in there too). I asked them to think of which jobs adults are employed in that would involve these tasks. They quite enjoyed this part of it and came up with good answers. We had people working in Hotels and hospitals, people who clean buildings and houses, the garbage collectors and people who work in restaurants (Lilly calls them all Master chefers )

Next I got them to do a couple of the jobs. Before they started I got them to ask for the jobs that they were most interested in, tying it in with the world at large by talking about applying for jobs and the interview process.

I then payed them for their completed tasks awarding them more or less coins depending on the difficulty. This worked really well they were able to finally begin to understand why some people earn more money than others and to see that it was actually fair.

Then, after their work morning was over and everyone had been payed I took them to the local Salvos to buy some Crock Plates (The kids word for breakable plates after they heard them referred to as Crockery) so that they could understand that the money you work for is mostly spent on the necessities of life. Crock plates are an absolute necessity as they prove that you are now a ‘Big Kid’ as have been begged for for a few weeks now.

This is the breakfast bowl, lunch plate and dinner plate that Alanah picked out for herself. She managed to find a rainbow flowered plate.

This is Lillian’s set. She was so proud that she found a bowl that matched her dinner plate.

These are Eli’s, did I mention he likes black.

He was also thrilled to pieces that he could see his hand through his plate. I love how their personalities have come through in their purchases.

They had to add up the prices on each item then count out their coins to make sure they had enough. Lani was shy by 50 cents but she had her heart set on the pink spotted bowl which was three dollars because it was Churchill and made in England so I let borrow 50 cents from me. Maybe we should talk about banks next???

Lani has had a bit of a phobia of money, totally freaking out whenever it came up in maths last year.  I realized that she had a problem visualizing numbers in her head and was constantly confusing their place value. Because I didn’t want her to panic every time she held a coin in her hand I thought it best not to mention Money Maths till she got basic addition down pat. The freedom to allow Lani to work through her fear at her own pace has been one of the most wonderful outcomes of our adventures through the uncertain waters of home schooling.

The other day after we had just completed the unit on basic addition I dumped Glenn’s change box on the table. And while I washed the dishes after lunch I asked the kids to sort all the coins, placing each value into a separate box. I didn’t mention adding them up or even encourage them to take any particular notice of the coins at all, really I just wanted them to get used to touching them.

It wasn’t long before Lani found a commemorative 50 cent piece. This one was about remembrance day, so we had a conversation about the past. We talked of greed and pride, of misplaced loyalty of fear and dictatorship and of the brave men and women who stood up against it. And suddenly coins were interesting, they had a story to tell. the race was then on to get through the box and find all the picture coins and hear their stories.

We learnt of selfless people, of those who stood up against adversary, of those who strove to be the best in their chosen fields and we learnt a little more of our place in the world. Then they wanted to know why the old lady on the back of the coins face kept changing, so we had a little talk about showing due respect to the monarchy and I showed them were the date was written on each coin.

Because they all seemed on such good terms with the money I decided to set them a little challenge. I told them that they were each allowed to keep 4 dollars, but that they couldn’t use the 1 dollar or the 2 dollar coin and that once they had counted out a dollar with one type of coin they couldn’t use the same coin again.

They had no problems at all. Lani instantly knew that two 50s were needed and then all of them got to work skip counting by 20s 10s and 5s. Oh what an incentive monetary gain can be.

Later that day Lani came up to me and sain “Mummy, we forgot to do Maths today, you should get out our math sheets”