February 14, 2014 at 2:20 p.m.
Monkey Market teaches children about the economy
Monkey Market teaches children about the economy
By Kayla Thomason-
The YMCA's Monkey Market program allows children to create anything they can think of out of recycled items, set a sale price and sell it using Monkey Money.
"My program is all about giving [the children] learning opportunities through play and through fun activities after school that are not as directed as school is," explained Abbie Cline, creator of Monkey Market and the School-aged Child Care Director at the YMCA of the Northwoods.
Cline has seen the children create many things like paper pizzas that the children put in pizza boxes, cupcakes made out of Dole plastic fruit cups that the children glued together and decorated, piggy banks and bongos made out of coffee cans and a table made out of pieces of cardboard.
"Their imaginations just ran wild and then when they finally got to get money to actually purchase things from each other's stores it was nuts, they absolutely loved it," said Justin Becker, an after-school teacher at the Y.
The children work in groups of two or three. They create a store name and split the earnings evenly amongst themselves.
The children have wallets and at the very beginning of Monkey Market they are given $15 of Monkey Money that they count at the bank, then they go off and sell their products and buy their friends' creations. What they have in their wallet at the end of the day is what they will have the next sale day. They do not get more money from the bank, so if they spend all of their money they have to figure out how to make more.
"I always tell them 'guys you have to purchase things from other people because otherwise you're not putting money into your economy, nobody else is going to have any money and they are not going to come over and purchase any of your things because they don't have any money to do it with," Cline said.
Staff members have seen children come back with empty wallets, and one time she had a child come back with $75 of Monkey Money.
"The ones that blew their money right away they were like 'Oh OK, well let me sell some more stuff and then I'm going to hang on to my money and then I have some to spend.' I think they definitely learned how to save money even though it was fake money," Becker said.
There are 24 children ranging from 5 to 12 years old in the after-school program who participate in Monkey Market, which is held every Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. They take a break from Monkey Market every other month so the children won't become bored of it.
The children can take their purchases home or leave them at the Y, depending on their parents' preference.
"They generally take their stuff home because they are proud of it and they are like 'I bought this and my friend made it,'" Cline said.
Kayla Breese may be reached at [email protected].
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