Pre-Kindergarten Pupils Learn to Save, Share Money
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Mary Ann Heston is a teller -- a bank teller 31 years and a volunteer storyteller 16 of those years.
At the Mill Creek Children’s Center Tuesday morning, the PNC Bank teller read aloud stories about saving, sharing and spending money in the pre-kindergarten classroom of Clorinda Kilgore to 4- and 5-year-olds fresh from their gym class.
Seated in a square on the edge of a rug, the 14 children listened as Heston read “Dylan and the New Playground” and “For You, For Me, For Later,” the latter featuring Elmo and Cookie Monster.
The class, one of 66 in Valley schools sponsored by PNC Foundation, Junior Achievement of Mahoning Valley and the YMCA of Youngstown, is structured to teach children at an early age to distinguish coins, the value of money and the need to save, says Michele Merkel, president of JA.
Assisting JA, she noted, is the Sesame Street Workshop that helps volunteers such as Heston teach financial literacy at even that young an age.
Dylan was the hero of the first story as he and his classmates saved to buy new equipment to replace the old for their playground at school.
Heston stopped to ask the children questions about Mill Creek Children’s Center and its playground. “Did you have fun your first day of school?” she asked with responses of “Yes.”
The children were thoroughly enjoying themselves because of Heston’s storytelling ability as much as their fascination with the videographers filming their participation.
“Dylan” had a happy ending as he was rewarded with a penny for each minute he read aloud at home to his parents. Then Heston asked the children to pretend they were playing on the equipment at their school.
Before the story about Elmo, Kilgore and teacher’s aide Lakeisha Williams passed out sheets of paper with four pictures on them as Kilgore instructed the pupils, “Put down the crayons. You don’t need crayons for this.”
Heston interjected, “Put on your listening ears.” The pupils settled down to hear, “Elmo has a dollar. Does he have enough money to buy the ball he wants?” The sheet each child held listed the price of the ball as $5.
“Let’s clap once,” Heston urged, to indicate one dollar.
“Elmo needs five,” she continued. “Clap five times.” They did.
“So Elmo started saving right away in a savings jar. Elmo saved $5 in one week. He has enough to buy a ball,” Heston said. “Cookie Monster comes by and wants a dollar to buy a cookie. Did Elmo share his dollars?”
It turns out Elmo did.
This story, too, has a happy ending. Not only did Cookie Monster buy a cookie, Elmo found another ball he liked better – and it cost only $4.
The lessons, Heston said, are “Elmo saved his money. Elmo shared his money. Elmo spent his money.”
The bank had provided some 50 clear plastic jars with blue lids, each of which had a slot and read, “PNC Grow Up Great.”
Kilgore directed her pupils to the tables where the jars sat as Heston instructed the kids to each take three jars and use them as “Elmo had used three jars, one for spending, one for saving and one for sharing,” Heston iterated.
The children made labels to tape to their jars that identified the purposes but began to smell the aroma of chicken tenders – their lunch -- waft through their classroom. Heston, Kilgore and Williams had to work to keep their kids’ attention but, before they left for lunch, each child had taped the labels to their three jars.
A focus of PNC philanthropy, PNC Youngstown Regional President Ted Schmidt said, is early childhood education. “PNC knows that what children learn in their early years determines their success as they go on in school and when they grow up,” he said. The PNC Foundation program, Grow Up Great, Schmidt continued, provides leadership and volunteers, advocacy for children and works to develop innovative ways for children to learn and develop.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.