Have you enjoyed playing pretend “sari-sari” store as a kid? Did you also have this uncontrollable curiosity and longing to have your own cash register and bar code reader? Or was that just us? *giggles* Riley aka our 4-year old “bossing” has been enjoying his playtime: asking us to order food from his restaurant, cooking dishes with his toys and delivering it to our desks. Of course, we have to pay. Sort of. Thus the inspiration to this project!
Beyond my toddler though,I was thinking of ways on how I can give. I’ve started working on this project back in September 2019. I figured, my money will always be finite. Once they are able to purchase the goods, it will definitely help someone. I still donate whenever I can in terms of time & resources but I’m thinking what is it that someone can repeatedly use?
So, I was thinking, if I actually left a file, and a file can outlive me (as long as there is a PDF / JPEG reader & the internet), this is a resource that can be reused over and over.
I thought I would have been able to finish this project by December during the break. I was having a dilemma as to which drawing style I can put for the place of the presidents. I only ended up reading on all the past presidents and tried figuring out which modern day non-/political figure looked like their uncle / grandfather / parent.
If there’s something I enjoyed, it’s being able to find bits and pieces of info on our paper bills. Apparently, all our bills have “Pilipino” spelled out in Baybayin on the lower right.
Each of our bills celebrate a pattern from one of the regions in the Philippines too! Finally, I didn’t realize that our bills actually come in rainbow colors:
Red = 50 pesos
Orange = 20 pesos
Yellow = 500 pesos
Green = 200 pesos
Blue = 1000 pesos
Purple = 100 pesos
Thanks to quarantine (a mixture of anxiety & being thrown off from my usual routine) this thought came to mind!
Aside from being able to use this printable resource. I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you. I hope this will also help in other things in the guise of play time:
(1) Math – I would always hear “Hindi ako magaling sa math” (I’m not good at math.) Sometimes, I wish we were taught math in a more enjoyable way. For example, just imagine if just sang our way through all the multiplication tables back in the day then we wouldn’t have been intimidated by multiplication. Quizzes didn’t have to feel life-threatening or a gauge of our value as a student.
I know there are multiplication songs now. (Thank you!)
Meanwhile, I hope the play money helps you learn place value, greater than, less than, that if you know 5+5 = 10 then it’s so easy to grasp that 500+500 = 1000. I hope it would make addition & subtraction more fun.
(2) Math as a Language – Math is a language. It’s amazing how it’s a universal language. So is music. (Speaking of language, I sometimes wonder how awesome it would be to learn sign language–another universal language–but I’m veering away from the topic here. Hehe.)
Any language must be practiced often. I think that’s why I love this subject. No need to memorize. You only need to practice and analyze.
(3) Financial Literacy – Sometimes, my toddler would sell me his sari-sari store goods for free and I find myself blurting out: “Kailangan mo ng puhunan para sa mga bibilhin mo”. Of course he doesn’t understand yet. I would explain that to him when he’s older. I think my point is, I’m concerned that financial literacy is something that isn’t taught to most of us.
Sometimes, money is frowned upon. Earning is sometimes associated with greed. But money is a resource and a good friend of mine told me that he read somewhere that money is just like a magnifying glass: it magnifies your values & principles to a bigger scale.
I read that in “I Wish They Taught Money in School”–also a book I illustrated & learned a lot from, in our society, money is taboo. It’s true! People talk about their love life but money, never. We also shy about talking about death or the end of life (but that’s a totally different blog post).
I noticed, whatever it is that doesn’t get discussed, never gets solved. How do we approach or augment a problem when we don’t even know what the problem is, right? As a cliche goes, “knowing is half the battle”.
Anyways, enjoy this free printable Philippine toy money template! Instructions on assembly can be found on the template as well. If you do make this, please don’t hesitate to post them and tag us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@googlygooeys)! We’d love to see and feature your crafts too.
(4) Maximizing Resources – If there’s something I learned from my parents, they always encourage the people around them to look for other ways and means to earn. Of course it’s not just money as money per se but it’s really a way to maximize the resources around them and help their family in the process.
My dad always encouraged those closest to him to look or businesses where they can thrive–for starters, something that didn’t need so much capital. As an OFW then in the Middle East when I was younger, he had assignments in the dessert sometimes. He went there and he would meet a fellow Filipino baking pan de sal. He would bring it back to his officemates who missed pan de sal and from his place, he would bring goods that the baker needed from the city.
I didn’t really know I was doing the same thing until we were talking about my dad at his wake. When I finally had Riley in my life, I opened a bank account for our house help. That way, she can opt to set a side a portion of her income in the bank so everything is not in her wallet all the time: not accessible for spending and for safekeeping when she travels on her day-off. I also encouraged her then to buy a pig which she could sell come fiesta time for extra income.
I came home from a trip and the driver and I were exchanging stories. He said he wanted to have a business where he can sell rice but he’s still looking for a place to rent and enough capital so he can buy enough sacks and hire another person to handle this. I told him that the key is to just start. He told me he visits his province every weekend and that he is allowed to take his vehicle with him. I told him he can bring home a sack each time: something his vehicle can handle and he can sell it to his neighbors and earn. When he has enough, he can then think of renting a place but he can earn while raising his capital.
Of course there are so many other means of starting a business such as looking for investors / industrial partners to jumpstart the process and the like but the key here is to start. Just start. (Sorry, I think, at this point, I’m really talking to myself to start finishing all my projects. Haha.)
Anyway, I’m just thinking to myself, ma-diskarte ang mga Pinoy. As a nation, we are resilient and resourceful and how powerful it would be to get the word around financial literacy. If you’re looking for a finance book that’s not so intimidating, you will find it here (https://www.lifestyleupgrade101.com/).
(5) Post-Quarantine Values – This is a very difficult time for all of us but on a more positive note, I’ve already seen a lot of change in our values as a society but I’m excited to get to see more. Do we come out more generous? More frugal? This very memorable experience will definitely have an impact on our values and I’m curious how this will all pan out ten to twenty years from now.
Introduce numbers and the concept of finance, money and math with the Googly Gooeys Philippine Play Money printable! Click the button below to download.
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Googly Gooeys Philippine Play Money/Banknote Printable Template Terms of Use: For personal use only. This is meant for parents, guardians & teachers. This is not for commercial use or sale. No part of this template may be reproduced, copied or sold without the artist’s written consent. This template or any of its parts cannot be distributed or sold outside of googlygooeys.com and its social media channels.
