How to Use

Moneyville in 1^st Class

Moneyville is an educational tool for teaching school children aged 6 to 7 years old about mathematics, money and finances.

To get started, each child must create a Moneyville profile – either individually or in small groups. This guide lists some suggestions for activities and discussion topics which you can address in the classroom.

The activities are divided up into various places that can be explored in Moneyville. That way, you can choose to associate each activity with a game, or you can mix them so that the activities better relate to your own teaching plan. Several of the suggested activities can be used for both topic-specific work and in an interdisciplinary manner.

Moneyville’s materials and content was developed with leading experts in e-learning, including media researchers, child psychologists, representatives from teacher training organisations and online media experts and has been created to support the National School Curriculum.

Earn Money at the City Gates

The first place your students will encounter is  the city gate. Here, they will be able to earn their first gold coin.

Suggested discussion:

• What is money?
• How can we earn money by working?
• Silver coins and gold coins – what is the difference, and how many silver coins equal one gold coin? Compare cents and Euros.
• The different between pocket money (for children) and an income (for adults)
• Do you have to work for your pocket money?

Explore the Farm

At the farm, the focus is on basic mathematical understanding. Here, you can use fun games such as caring for the farm animals to teach your students about numbers and amounts.

Suggested activities:

• Discuss what kind of products come from animals – for example eggs, wool, milk, yoghurt and meat. Let your students figure out which products come from which animals.
• Give your students photographs of different animals and ask them to categorise them according to various criteria – for example, animals with 2 legs vs. animals with 4 legs, or animals from a farm vs. animals from a zoo.
• Bring milk and juice cartons in different sizes to class and let your students arrange them according to height and/or content. Afterwards, talk about the differences in price based on the difference in size of each carton. You can also talk about volumes and what their differences mean – for example 1 litre, ½ litre, 250 grams, etc.
• Let your students discuss what various products cost – for example milk, eggs, cheese, etc.
• Visit a local farm if possible.

Earn Money in the Apple Yard

In the apple yard your students will gather apples that will then be used to produce apple juice that can then be sold.

Suggested activities:

• Ask your students to play the game and in that way earn some money. Talk afterwards about how ten silver coins is the same as one gold coin.
• Hide plastic apples, real apples, photographs of apples or other objects that look like apples around the classroom. Ask your students (either individually or all at once) to find ten apples, and then count them together as they are placed in a basket. Every time the students have filled a basket, the class gets one coin.
• Find five different types of apples and price them accordingly. Let your students use coins with varying values to pay for the different apples.
• Tell your students about the varying factors that affect the production of apples: soil, temperature, water, etc.

Earn Money at the Post Office

At the post office your students can earn money by sorting packages according to how much the content inside is worth.

Suggested activities:

• Wrap various objects in paper and let your students explore the difference between large vs. small packages and heavy vs. light packages. Use a scale if possible. At the end, let your students guess what is inside each package.

• Talk about the fact that a large package is not necessarily worth more than a small package – that the size or weight of something does not necessarily define its value.

• Draw a door on several cardboard boxes, cut out a hole for a mail slot and give each door a number. The students are then given envelopes with numbers on them, which they then need to deliver to the correct “house”. Afterwards, count how many letters each house received.
• Give each student an item and a roll of wrapping paper. The students will then need to evaluate the item’s size and cut a piece of wrapping paper large enough to wrap the item completely. The aim is to cut a piece that is neither too large nor too small.
• Let your students draw/paint their own post card for their parents, grandparents or friends and go with them to the post office/post box to mail them.
• Explain what happens from the moment a letter or a package is put into a post box until the moment it is delivered to its final destination.

Visit Penny’s Shop

In Penny’s shop your students can purchase things for their rooms and for themselves. Various items can be purchased with the money they have earned at the farm, the post office and the apple yard.

Suggested activities:

• Show Penny’s shop on a Smartboard or on an interactive board in the classroom. Ask your students to draw the number of silver or gold coins that some of the things in the shop cost.

• Show those items that cost up to 10 silver coins. Ask your students to close their eyes and to listen and remember how many coins you drop, one at a time, into a bowl. Afterwards, let your students find those items in the shop that cost up to the amount of silver coins in the bowl.
• Play a form of musical chairs with photographs of different numbers of coins. When the music stops – the students have to, for example, stand on the photograph that shows 8 silver coins.
• Give each student five gold coins – what can they buy with them in Penny’s shop?

• Ask your students about their biggest wishes. Ask them how they think they can fulfil them. Talk about what those things cost, if they are material items.

Activities in the Time Machine

In the Time Machine your students will learn about more than just money, so it’s an ideal place to visit when you have interdisciplinary projects.

Your students can visit Egypt and Rome as well as experience what one did in the Middle Ages. They can also find a dinosaur egg.

Suggested activities with the dinosaurs:

• Display a number of dinosaurs and let your students arrange them according to height or weight.
• Let your students use modelling clay to create their favourite dinosaur or an imaginary dinosaur.

Suggested activities in Egypt:

• Ask your students to create their own pattern out of Egyptian symbols or designs. They can colour and print their creations.
• Talk to your students about what a pyramid looks like and introduce words to describe the various geometric shapes.
• Make or find a template for a pyramid that is folded out and let the students fold and glue the pyramid back together. Talk about the concept of two and three dimensions as well as capacious structures.
• Talk about why our houses are not built like the pyramids, and show photographs of houses from other parts of the world to show what they look like.
• Talk about life in ancient Egypt. How did people live, what did they eat, what kind of work did they do?

Suggested activities in Rome:

• Complete a puzzle of the buildings in Rome and learn how they are constructed. The completed images can be printed out.
• Talk about what it was like to grow up in Ancient Rome, where there were no iPads, mobile phones, TV, internet or electricity.

Suggested activities in the Middle Ages:

• Use the archery game to discuss the various factors that make it possible to hit the target (direction, strength, etc).
• Discuss coats of arms and let your students draw what they think their own family’s coat of arms should look like.
• Show pictures of various forts and castles. Talk about why they are designed the way they are (moats, gun slits, towers, etc.) Which fort or which castle is most secure? Why?
• Let your students build their own castle out of, for example, cardboard, straws, or Popsicle sticks and let them measure the height and length of the ground area.
• Visit a local castle, if possible.

Find more activity ideas in the materials for Senior Infants, 2nd class and 3rd class.