Using the cash register in the house keeping area makes a lot of sense if you have set up this area as place where money might actually exchange hands such as grocery store, a bank, a post office, a restaurant, or a beauty salon.  Make sure you mark the different items that are for sale with simple price tags so that children can begin to associate the price number with the money. If you don’t want to permanently mark your items, you can create small price tags on strings that can be tied to the objects while the housekeeping area is set up this way.

Say, for example, you create a grocery store in your program.  Set up the shelves with all of the pretend food and put price tags on everything.  Have the shopping carts ready and put the cash register on a table for “check out”.  Be sure to have shopping bags available so that children can bag their groceries.  It will make the most sense if the prices are in round numbers like $1 or $5 rather than $2.99 or $5.25.

I also like the idea of creating “shopping lists” so the children can also make the connection between writing things down and reading them later.  These are nice and easy to make.

Be sure to have wallets or purses with the pretend money inside so that children can spend their money at the store.

Toy cash registers have come a long way since my children were little.  Ours had buttons with numbers and a big button that opened the drawer.  That was all.  Inside, there was space for the pretend money.  Funnily enough, I actually remember that the money that came with the register didn’t quite fit in the drawer.

Now they make cash registers that have small computers in them so that when buttons are pushed, the numbers come up on the screen.  Children can add up their shopping items and then total them.  Many of these new-fangled machines also have scanners that actually work.

The cash register is another great way to enhance the money experience for children.  They are usually a highly coveted item in the classroom, so it might be nice to have more than one around.

I only found one set of international currency available for purchase on the Internet, but I have to think that there are more out there.  The one I found is from Great Britain, which wouldn’t be my first choice, but might be an interesting way to start a collection.

You might create activities that have children compare and contrast American money with British money.  Introduce the symbols ($, ¢, £) and have them search for them on the bills.  Explore the people whose faces appear on the bills and discuss the difference between a President and a Queen.  Have children trade the money and then sort it and categorize it.  The ideas are endless.

Money is a pretty interesting concept for young children.  It is one of those items that they see every day and they hear about all of the time, but they are not really allowed to have any or touch.  When Noah was about 4 he told us that he wanted to be the President of the United States.  “Aaaah,” we thought, “we must be doing something right if he has such ambitions.” Digging a little deeper, we discovered that it wasn’t the Presidency he was interested in, it was getting his face printed on money.  We actually had a birthday cake made for him that looked like a $100 bill and smack dab in the middle was his face.

Coins present problems for programs with children under three as they are a choking hazard.  Even the play sets available for purchase, usually have smallish items that need to be sorted out for a mixed-age room.  However, if you have children 3 and over, there are so many ways that money activities can support early math concepts.

At first, most children will believe that all money has the same value, that it is irrelevant if they have a nickel, a dime, or a quarter.  In their minds, they are all equally valuable and they may even count each coin and assign it a value of “1”.  “I have 5 monies,” is not an unusual thing to hear a 3 or 4-year-old say. It would be much, much easier to teach value if American coins increased in size as they increase in value.  Since they do not, it is very complicated to expect children to understand that 2 nickels=1 dime (the nickels are bigger and therefore “more” than the smaller dimes).  Remember, children are confused by appearance and our money system is really confusing. (If you have ever travelled to a place with a different monetary system, you will find that even as an adult, you will be confused by the size of the coins and their values.)

Start with pretend paper money – Monopoly-type money works just fine.  If you want it to last for more than 1 day, you might go and laminate a lot of it, so it doesn’t get crumpled up or written on.  I also like that Monopoly money is color coded and the values are written clearly on it.  If you create your own, make only 1s, 5s, and 10s to start so there is less confusion. Use it around the classroom, having children pay for different things and possible even earn pretend money.  If you choose to do this, be sure that it is equally distributed and earning money is not connected to behavior.  You can distribute $20 in small denominations to each child upon entering your program one morning and then you can have different areas where children can spend throughout the day.  If they worry that they are going to run out, simply reassure them that they can get more if they want it.  Although this is not the life lesson we will eventually teach children about money, in a play and pretend situation, it will remove any anxiety the kids might have about not having enough, or running out.  Even when removing the worry, some children will hang on tight to their money anyway.  That is OK.  They can participate but not pay.

The goal of the activity is for children to make the connection between something that costs $1.00 and the $1.00 bill in their hands.  Later, they can use their $5.00 bill and begin to understand that they should get change.  Again, this is a very sophisticated skill.  Kindergarteners and 1st graders are just beginning to make these connections.