A great way for children to learn about money is to use it. Most people have thought of setting up a home 'store' with toys or fake food for sale, and then you have to make price tags, and store the 'stuff'.

I was always lazy, I use a shape puzzle that we have around for our youngest. Pricing is easy, each shape costs 1 cent per side (a lesson in shapes and money) For my older son we used 10cents per side (lesson in equality)

I usually 'shortchange' my kids in pennies (or dimes for older) that way they have to earn more, or trade in dimes for them. (or if ready, work on making change)

After todays lesson, I talked more about how grownups have to budget. I pointed out that we had to pay for the house (pentagon, almost house shaped) and we had to pay for the car (trapezoid) and we needed food (square, 4 food groups) and some all around house bills (circle), and phone (half circle, it looks kinda like a phone). Then we were almost out of money, we could either pay for a trip to the science center (rectangle, medium bill) or eating out (oval, small bill) or take a vacation to see family up north (hexagon, big bill)

He noticed we couldn't do all of them, but if we skipped the science center and eating out we could go on vacation....

Pretty nifty the mileage you can get out of one wooden puzzle!