Educators and Parents

Have you thought about teaching children personal finance skills? It’s never too early to start saving and learning about personal responsibility with money. The sooner children start saving, the better off they’ll be financially when college comes around. At the very least, they’ll be less likely to have uncontrollable spending habits than if they’d never learned about the importance of saving and how to go about it.

Now, you may be wondering about how you’re going to get little Johnny and Susie to sit still long enough for you to teach them about personal finance. It actually doesn’t have to be boring for kids to learn. In fact, it can be fun.

These websites have games or information aimed at teaching young children about financial literacy.

  • Treasury Direct for Kids has a couple of simple (if sometimes hard) games, and a lot of information about the national debt and treasury securities.
  • MoneyIsland has a game centered around teaching children about the principles of personal finance. It also has additional games, videos, and other useful tools and information.
  • PracticalMoneySkills has a variety of games. Some of them are aimed especially at new learners, but others are aimed at a slightly older crowd.
  • Admongo is a game designed for children. It teaches about advertisements, and is designed to educate consumers so that they should think critically before buying something after seeing an advertisement for it.

A different website that is fun for both younger children and older folks is Neopets.com. Although it is not specifically designed with financial literacy in mind, it provides definite incentive to save, and can teach principles of basic economics.

If you are a teen, or teaching a teen, these links are particularly focused towards older children.

For information about the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, click here.


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