Heading South for the Winter...

I am completely in denial that November is over - it went by way too fast!

On the contrary, I'm guessing that turkeys are letting out a collective sigh of relief and excitedly hanging up their feathers until next Thanksgiving...

Monopoly Moguls in Training

My family recently joined an organization called Jack & Jill of America that provides amazing social and educational programming for African-American children. Each month parents have the opportunity to plan and execute themed activities for the kids. Last weekend I helped create a finance-themed event for my oldest son's group. Fortunately I was paired with a mom named Loren who literally bleeds creativity. She came up with the brilliant idea of teaching financial literacy through the use of a human monopoly game. We created a life-sized game board and the kids (in teams of two) were the game pieces. One team member was responsible for the money and the other held the deeds as they moved around the board. I'll jump to the punchline and tell you that the kids had an absolute blast playing the game! Here are some of the pics from the event...

Loren is the owner of a stationery company called Statianery, so needless to say she created all of the printed products for the event. Those products included:

Invitations...

Personalized Wallets for each child...

Life-sized Dice...

Water Bottle Labels...

Food Signs (the kids had to "buy" their own lunch)...

Custom Monopoly Money...

I had the pleasure of creating monopoly-themed centerpieces for the event. Those centerpieces included:

Monopoly House and Hotel Game Pieces...

Mr. Monopoly...

Various Monopoly Game Pieces...

In addition to playing the monopoly game, we also reviewed financial concepts and handed out this interactive booklet that has great activities about money for kids.

I would definitely recommend the human monopoly game for both kids and adults!