Banker was one of the community helpers I chose for the letter B, and lucky for us this was a week we needed to go to the bank anyhow! Before this the girls had no idea what a bank really did. I think they thought I took them pieces of paper, and they gave us back suckers. If I asked them what a bank was for they had no clue. But if I asked them what their piggy banks were for they knew they were to hold money. So we talked about the fact that the bank holds lots of money, and the banker is in charge of the money. When we visited the bank this week we went in and delivered a plate of cookies too. Whenever I can I am going to try to give cookies or something to our community helpers in hopes that it will help the girls to learn to be more generous. I know it won't always be possible, but if we have a community helper on our list that we can visit we'll try to do it! The bank teller we handed them too was quite surprised!
We also talked a bit about money. Mainly about coins, what they were called and how much each was worth. That information alone was a little overwhelming. I found these cute little
printable coin books to go over, and then I had them sort the coins in their piggy banks.
I also had them make ten piles each with ten pennies. We could then count the pennies by tens to 100 which obviously equals a dollar.
I also had them sort the coins into cups based on how much each was worth. I just wrote the amount each was worth on the popsicle stick. I had considered making them little banks, but at this point not being able to compare them to the other coins probably would have frustrated them more then anything.
This is definitely something we will need to work on again! If anyone has any good tricks on teaching money (without frustration) please let me know!
