Now that school is out, most children will be looking forward to participating in enjoyable activities throughout the summer. If you’re a parent of kids with an overabundance of energy, you know how difficult it can be to keep them engaged in useful endeavours during the holidays.

If your vacation budget is tight and you don’t want your children to spend countless hours glued to the TV screen, tablet or telephone, you will have to get creative in serving up summer fun. Here are a few ideas that will keep your kids entertained, while learning about money and finance.

Explore our money history

Our coins and banknotes can provide a wealth of information about our history and national facts for younger children. By creating entertaining activities around the units of currency, you will help them to recognise them and appreciate interesting tidbits about our country.

Look at the images on each monetary unit and extract all the information for your kids to explore in greater detail. For example, you could stage a treasure hunt over the summer where they try to find examples of the actual flora and fauna that are represented on the coins and banknotes.

Another idea is to make flash cards with pictures of the national heroes or places of interest, and let the kids guess which unit they appear on. You could also take a trip to the Money Museum at the Bank of Jamaica so that they can see how our money evolved throughout the years.

Practise money skills at the supermarket

Grocery shopping is usually a mundane activity for most people but with a little imagination, the supermarket can become a veritable amusement centre for your children. Create shopping games while you are in the store. That will help them learn how to budget their money and spend wisely.

Here’s one way to teach kids how to round numbers and keep a tally of the amount they have to spend. The challenge is to fill a shopping cart with items that do not go above a certain sum of money. Award a prize if they are successful in sticking to their budget without using a calculator.

Your children and their friends can also recreate the supermarket experience at home. They can make their own paper currency and go shopping with real groceries or make-believe items. Allow each child the opportunity to role-play cashier, the perfect way to reinforce their addition and subtraction skills.

Surf online for money sites

If your children are going to spend a lot of time online this summer, they might as well learn about money while they are surfing. Do some research on interactive, relevant websites that will entice your kids to discover more about saving, investing, earning and making spending decisions.

One website that will appeal to children of varying ages is RichKidSmartKid.com. It was developed by the team that created the Rich Dad series of books and resources, and it uses entertaining games to teach important financial lessons that will change your children’s outlook on money.

Another useful site is PracticalMoneySkills.com, where younger kids can learn how to set goals. Children and adults alike will enjoy the money game at FinancialSoccer.com. You can also check out the apps on a tablet to find relevant content that can support the teaching of money skills.

Create money board games

Although we are in the era of electronics, children still can have fun with pastimes that we used to enjoy. You can put your own twist on board games such as Monopoly and Snakes & Ladders and design similar playing boards that will incorporate some important money concepts.

If your kids are not familiar with these games, search online for visuals of the boards and playing instructions. With a sturdy cardboard or plastic sheet as a base, get them to use their artistic flair to create a playing board with sections, tokens and actions that are more relevant to their lifestyle.

With Monopoly, which focuses on buying, selling and renting real estate, change the addresses to reflect the desirable areas in your community. For Snakes & Ladders, you can create rewards and pitfalls based on positive money habits such as saving, or negative actions such as overspending.

Produce a money game show

If you have several kids around this summer, let them use their ingenuity to script and produce a game show that tests their knowledge about money and finance. They can emulate popular show formats such as Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

To get content for the show, they will have to carry out research to find money trivia, such as quotes from famous investors, business owners in the news, information on stocks and world currencies. This can help them to widen their horizons and learn more about international finance.

Many children have access to recording devices, so there may be increased interest for the game show if they record the activities and post them on YouTube. Your kids may even start a cool trend to learn more about money that will continue throughout their lives.

Copyright © 2015 Cherryl Hanson Simpson. No reproduction without written consent.

Originally published in The Daily Observer, July 9, 2015.

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Cherryl is a money coach and business mentor, and founder of Financially S.M.A.R.T. Services. See more of her work at www.entrepreneursinjamaica.com and www.financiallysmart.org. Contact Cherryl