This month we got a retro Kids Night In Box. The Finance Club is from last year which we had not done previously. Talking about money with your children can be daunting, I know it isn’t just me. How do you put value into terms that they will understand?
The book included with this shipment is If You Made A Million by David M. Schwartz. The colorful book entertains while discussing the value of money. Going beyond just earning money, the main character, Mathematical Magician Marvelosissimo (say that five times fast!) discusses interests, investments and dividends. While the toddler definitely didn’t grasp the concept, just discussing it at all is useful. The school-age-kiddo definitely caught on. Immediately asked about how much lemonade and baking supplies would cost so she could hold a lemonade/cupcake stand, and then asked where she could invest it! The book is a great practical resource to discuss money with school-age children that I had not heard of or read previously. After reading it and discussing the topics with my children, I definitely recommend it.

Along the lines of the book, activities in the included pamphlet discuss the value in money. There are two columns, one for younger children and one for older children. Breaking it down into two groups worked well. We pulled out the included play money to discuss the difference and the value of money. There was even plastic “silver dollars” which our children had never seen before and created confusion in our oldest who said “I thought dollars were only bills”. It was a great segway into a discussion about how some countries use coins even for “big bills” – 500 yen in Japan is about $5 USD and that is a coin. While discussing money of other countries was not an included topic in the pamphlet, it proved to be a great discussion. Thanks to the ability to search on the internet, we discussed money from every country they kiddos could name!

The activity this month inspired an entrepreneurial spirit. All the needed ingredients, save for the milk, were included to make ice cream in plastic bags (think Chemistry class experiment!). The play money was used to “buy” the supplies from the “mommy store” and then they went ahead and gathered everything necessary to make the ice cream. The pamphlet indicated that there was a recipe included but there was only a list of ingredients. The list can be misleading as it just lists it all, and not in which order or which bag. If you do this box, don’t put the salt in your ice cream mixture – the salt goes on the ice to lower the temperature of the ice in the outer bag to freeze the inner bag of milk/sugar/vanilla combination into ice cream! I have done ice cream bag experiments enough to know what to do, but could definitely see how this could be confusing to someone who hadn’t done it before.

Shaking the bags together was definitely the most fun they had…we put on the Beatles “Twist And Shout” over and over and they had a blast! We definitely “worked it on out.”

The made ice cream was topped with strawberries, because California, and then “sold”. And the converted the Kids Night In Box to a bank is ready to collect any lemonade/baked goods earnings.

Overall, not the most jam-packed Kids Night Box that we have received, but it is on a topic that can be a tough discussion. Talking about money, investing, bank accounts can be a dry topic. The activities in the box made the discussion easy, so much so that we went onto topics on money that I didn’t even know we would discuss! Kids Night In sold out of the May box, so we got a previous box, and if they have one later this summer, we will definitely run a giveaway so others can benefit from these tools.
Kids Night In and Date Night In boxes can also come with a Faith element of an extra pamphlet with verses and discussion topics aligning with the Christian faith. We tried it out this month given that the topic was money. Like the rest of the boxes, it breaks down the topic into bite sized chunks that littles can understand and digest. If you are looking to add a faith element to these lessons, select the Faith option when you check out.
If you are interested in your own box, there are options. KNI would be a wonderful monthly break of fun and activities this summer! If you have children ages 3 and up, I would recommend a Kids Night In Box.

If you are looking for a 6 or 12 month subscription, use the code NIB2FREE for 2 free dates! Want to try a Date Night In for you and your spouse or partner?We were given this box for free, but are not ambassadors for this company and do not earn commission on any purchases.