Bank on It

Bank on It

Required:

• Pocket change
• Paper and pen

Does your child always ask to be the banker when you play board games—and is he or she great in the role? Here's an idea for letting your child practice playing the part.

Set up a table and chair in your "bank" (the living room, perhaps) where your junior teller can work. Then pull a handful of change from your pocket, and place it on the makeshift desk.

You and other family members can play-act the role of customers. Take turns filling out make-believe deposit slips and requesting different amounts of money. See whether your child can give you the cash using the fewest (or the most) coins, the greatest number of nickels, without using quarters, all in pennies, or in whatever configuration of coins you and the other "customers" specify.

You can vary the activity by having your child portray a post office clerk and create novelty stamps in a variety of denominations. So how many yaks, Popsicles, and skateboards does it take to send an oversized envelope first class?