CASHING IN ON MATH A dollar may not represent much purchasing power in your weekly budget, but it could be invaluable to improving your child’s math skills. From beginning counting and consumer math skills through advanced saving and investing, money presents a concrete, interesting way to learn. For example, using change, your younger child can grasp how to use different counting methods. Let your kindergartener count the change in your penny jar. After counting to 100 by ones, get your child to count by fives and then by 10s and 20s. You also can emphasize beginning addition skills with pocket change. “Trade” five pennies for a nickel. You can also try different combinations: one dime equals 10 pennies or five pennies plus one nickel. Set up play “stores” that encourage children to trade money for products, like a favorite treat or stickers. How many dollars, quarters, nickels, dimes or pennies equals a given “cost?” How much money is needed for more than one of the same product? It may not seem like multiplication and division, estimation and rounding, but it emphasizes the same abstract concepts in an easier to understand context. For more advanced students, use coins to look at decimals and fractions. A quarter is 1/4 is 0.25—it’s all how you look at it. Simply using a visual aid to show how fractions add up to a whole number can help children make the intuitive leap. Even as early as kindergarten, an allowance or earning money for chores can illustrate the importance of math in everyday life. For your young savers, introduce the idea of checkbook math. Visit your preferred bank together and open a beginning savings or checking account—many financial institutions have programs to help children understand money management concepts. This tool can help your child learn how to write a check, make account deposits and withdrawals, and manage and balance a checkbook with a monthly statement. For your middle-school or high-school student, budgeting, saving and investing money can teach real-life basic budget concepts and fundamental money math skills. With a focus on personal finance, get your teen to calculate interest. For example, if your teen leaves money untouched for a month, how much interest will accrue? Six months? Also, if your teen borrows money, how much will the principle plus interest payment amount to each month? Often, simple spreadsheet programs make this lesson easy to internalize and digest. By learning money management skills early, young adults can learn responsible habits that last a lifetime. For more ideas on how to use money to reinforce math skills, visit www.moneyinstructor.com. By Ross Foti