Age: 6+ (box says 7+)
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20 Minutes
Category: Board, Educational
Gameschool Area: Math
Price: $15.75 at RainbowResource.com
Publisher: Learning Resources
I try really hard to leave my kids home when I go to the store. We don’t buy candy. They don’t go to school so they don’t care about all the latest toys, games, and clothes that other kids want to buy. And they get almost everything they do want for school. This all makes for a situation where they haven’t really had much practical experience with money. Oops!!!
Since games are our Go-To resource for teaching skills, Money Bags has been great. My younger kids have learned about coin values, trading smaller coins for larger ones, adding up money amounts, and just getting familiar and comfortable with using money in a fun way.
Money Bags is probably not a game my kids would pick up and choose to play in leisure time, but they FOR SURE choose to play it when we play games during math time.
Game play is simple:
- Place one of each coin on the Money Bag ($.41)
- Roll the dice to move around the board
- Spin the arrow to find out which coins can be used
- Take the amount of money, using the allowed coins, to equal the amount on your board space
- The game ends when the first player reaches the end of the board
- The winner is the player with the most money
There are a few special spaces on the board:
- $ – take the Money Bag loot
- Change it Up – exchange coins of lesser value for coins of greater value (or dollar bills). Get an extra $.10 if you can do it.
Kids get lots of practice counting and exchanging money, and skills like this are easy for kids to learn they just take practice. This is a fantastic way to practice and learn!
