“What would you buy if you had money?”
A group of rising first graders at the East Side Charter School in Wilmington pondered that question for a moment before one raised his hand and answered the Planet Orange Summer Camp volunteer.
“A wrestling ring!” he said.
That wasn’t necessarily the answer volunteer Leslie Wason expected, but the purpose of the summer camp, sponsored by ING DIRECT, was to teach financial fundamentals to elementary school kids.
Volunteers from ING DIRECT spent a week at the school working with kids in kindergarten through eighth grade, teaching them about everything from needs versus wants to how to build a resume. The camp revolved around Planet Orange, an online teaching tool ING DIRECT created that uses space-related activities to impart financial lessons like check-writing and interest.
For a lot of the kids who attend East Side Charter, money is tight at home, so teaching them to save and spend wisely is critical, said Amanda Alexander, external programs manager at the school.
Many parents don’t teach young kids about money because they think they can’t grasp the concepts, she said, and they rely on schools to show their children how to spend and save.
“With school curriculums being as tight as they are, it’s a skill that gets lost,” she said.
But teaching kids about money doesn’t require a boring lecture, said Wason. The East Side Charter students learned best when they were doing a hands-on activity, she like, like a comparison shopping lesson that involved tasting generic and name brand pretzels.
Kids tend to focus on instant gratification, she said, but children as young as 5 understand what money is and have some grasp of how it should be saved and spent responsibly.
The best advice Wasom can give parents is to start teaching kids about money as early as possible, so responsible financial decision-making becomes a habit.
