Planet Orange now offers parents, educators, and children enhanced learning tools and games having to do with finances and money. There are a variety of space missions at Planet Orange, used to help kids discover the importance and value of money along with personal finance lessons through fun and engaging games and activities.

A site like Planet Orange is a great resource for parents. A recent survey conducted by ING DIRECT found that 94% of parents want to teach their children about the importance of money but may feel unprepared to do so effectively. Planet Orange, is geared toward children in grades one through six and topics like earning, saving, spending and investing are all covered in an interactive, space themed manner. There’s also a Teacher’s Resource Center with tutorials, free lesson plans, and supplemental information and tools to enhance the learning experience.

I visited the site and it’s colorful and fun, and best of all not one of those kid sites that talks down to kids. It’s a smart resource that kids can actually learn from. Keep in mind that kids may need a parent’s help to register though, for a kids site I was sort of surprised at the long registration form.

Visit Planet Orange and help your kids blast off into financial know-how.

Post from: Thrifty Mommy

Right now, kids are hopping about with sugar plum dreams, and most likely no thoughts of money or what holidays cost.

Not to kill the magic of the holiday season, but money skills are important year round.  Christmas, Hanukkah,  Valentines, and other holidays present good opportunities to push money skills home with your kids.

Allow your kids to give and receive: Getting gifts is fun for kids, but don’t underestimate the joy of giving. Most kids are thrilled with this. Some families I know celebrate the holidays in a thrifty manner by only buying gifts for the kids in the family. I don’t agree with this because it makes the holiday a little too much about a kid, and not about the whole family and friend group.

Work on a holiday budget: Along with the above tip, if you have the money means, set a small holiday gift budget for your child, and allow him to choose gifts for a few people. It helps your little one learn about cash and math if he sees that he’ll need to divide $50 somehow between 4 people.

Introduce philanthropy: Any holiday is a good time to discuss charity with your child. There are always kids in your community who won’t get to celebrate due to lack of money. It teaches your child about money and caring if you include a charity in your holiday celebration. For example, at Easter, set aside a charity budget. Allow your child to choose Easter basket fillers and then have him help you to set up the baskets and delivery them to a charity for kids.

Discuss what gifts cost: If you allow your child to believe in Santa, then he probably assumes those gifts are free (that’s fine). However, you can discuss gifts you may be giving him. Kids, starting at about 7 or 8 years old can handle this conversation. You can talk about how he’d like to get the Lego set, car track, and new video game but that all three cost so and so amount, which is too much for the budget. Talk about him making a list of favorite items he’d like that say, cost under $200 vs. all the items in the universe.

Take him shopping with you: Take your tot to the stores when you shop for other family members or friends. Talk openly about how and why you make purchasing decisions. I.E. “I would like to get Uncle Bob this gift, but it costs too much, so I found this cool gift, that Bob will like, but it’s in my budget.”

How are you discussing money with your kids this holiday season?

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Thrifty Mommy

Play with real money. Fake money always confused my son. When I broke out the real deal, he became much more used to the idea of money, and learned to tell coins apart.

Don’t leave the kids at home: Shopping sans kids is a total luxury; trust me I get it. However taking them to the store is one of the best opportunities you have to discuss prices, reductions, cost per pound and more.

Give them a calculator: My son loved calculators before he could really use one properly. Being that he’s just 7 he still can’t use all the functions, but he carries a calculator around with him anyhow. This might seem more like a math tool, and yeah, he likes to ask me math questions, because he can whip them out on a calculator – I’m talking, “Hey mom, what’s 1,456 – 40 + 341″ Um, ok. But he’s thinking about calculations, and that’s a good thing – it’s very money related. All this math Cedar’s been figuring out has helped him to understand what happens when you take 23 cents away from a dollar, stuff like that. I think being involved with numbers is a good thing if you’re trying to teach money skills.

What do you do to teach your kids about money? Games, books, other activities?

You might also like to read: How to totally mess up your kids when it comes to money

Post from: Thrifty Mommy