The students at Walter Aseltine School were taught valuable lessons about money earlier this week, as part of the Payday Playday event held at the school.

The event was put together with help from the West Central Literacy Committee, and READ Saskatoon, and used various various games and activities to help teach younger students how to be more responsible with money. Money can be difficult for younger children to fully understand, which is why parents were able to join in, and give their kids a hand.

Carmen Ledding, the Family Literacy Coordinator for the West Central Literacy Committee, explains.

“It’s an opportunity for families to work together as a team, and the kids are given almost like a passport book. It can keep track of their fake money that they have at the beginning, and then they have an opportunity to go from table to table, and they have an opportunity to spend it or save it.”

There were up to 13 different stations for students to participate in, each with a different activity and lesson for students to learn.

One station was called “Let’s Go Shopping,” and asked students to pick out grocery items for a week while keeping a budget in mind. Families were asked to consider what items were “needs,” and which items were “wants.”

Another activity was called the “Spend or Save Tarp Game,” and had participants step onto a tarp which was laid out with important decisions, like how much money to spend for a birthday or long weekend. Each decision was marked by a little mailbox that held either a cheque or a bill.

Ledding helps to explain why this event was held, and why it’s important to teach kids about money as soon as possible.

“It’s getting them to learn early, because a lot of times we don’t really have that conversation in the family until kids are ready to go off to school or buy a car, and it’s too late then, and especially nowadays, must of actually don’t really use cash, so we don’t even have that visual in front of us, and kids don’t get to see that handling of money on a daily basis either because of that.”

Ledding also explains that kids often don’t know much about money because they aren’t involved with the financial decisions that go on in their homes.

This was the third time the West Central Literacy Committee put together a Payday Playday, with previous events being held in Kindersley and another in Outlook.