Little Boy Beagle just turned two last month. One of his favorite things (and he has LOTS of them!) is to get a pony ride at Meijer, which is our grocery store of choice. One of Meijer’s traditions is that they have a little horse ride for kids at all of their stores, and they’ve always been a penny per ride.
Recently, I went on a shopping trip and got to take him on his pony ride. As soon as he sat down he started pressing the button that makes it go. It didn’t go, of course, until we put the penny in. So, before we started, I explained to him that we have to put money in, and that we have to pay for things that we want with money. Together, we put the penny in the slot, at which point the button lit up and he was able to press it to start his ride.
After the ride was done, he kept saying ‘Money’ and pointing to the slot where the penny goes. I told him that we only had enough money for that ride.
How much of this did he actually get? Who knows? Probably a lot. He gets so much more than we give him credit for. All I know is that it was a pretty cool first lesson for money, one that I’ll have to remember to teach all of our kids as I sense this will be a tradition!
What kind of money lessons have you taught your young kids?
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