Knock Knock Children’s Museum is making finances fun with its Earn & Learn Financial Literacy Weekend

The Knock Knock Children’s Museum is making finances fun with its annual Earn & Learn Financial Literacy Weekend. 

Earn & Learn is a two-day event from Saturday, June 13, to Sunday, June 14. The museum has put on this event for nearly a decade to teach children about the fundamentals of earning money and responsible spending in a fun, age-appropriate way.

“It’s all about teaching children the process of earning, and also helping them explore career pathways and just making financial decision-making skills,” says Susan Lynch, director of marketing and communications for the museum.

Upon arrival, children will be given a map of eight locations, spread across the museum’s Learning Zones, where they can participate in activities to earn tokens. The activities target a wide range of financial basics, including coin sorting, identifying needs vs. wants and how to budget money wisely at pretend businesses. 

Once they complete all of the activities, the children can spend their tokens on prizes from the Earn & Learn Shop in Knock Knock Square.

Knock Knock’s Learning Zones also expose children to various careers. Whether they practice scanning plastic produce in a grocery store or change a tire on a kid-sized car in a mechanic’s garage, children can gain experience earning wages for their hard work.

This event is put on in partnership with the Society of Louisiana Certified Public Accountants. Layne McDaniel, a member of the Society of Louisiana CPAs, says one of his organization’s primary focuses is introducing children to financial literacy at an early age.

Lynch estimates that about 100 volunteers recruited by the Society of Louisiana CPAs are involved in working the event, a contribution that makes the event possible in the first place. Organizing so many volunteers is not easy, but McDaniel says all the hard work is worth it to see the children grasp the topics they’re learning, all while having fun.

“You would be surprised how thrifty children are when they have to spend their own ‘money,'” McDaniel says. “It is truly enjoyable and rewarding to watch.”

Additionally, all of the activities and prizes are facilitated and donated by the organization.

“It’s just a really great way to see several different community partners come together, all to support children and learning financial literacy,” Lynch says.

Knock Knock’s mission as a museum is to help children learn through play. Every interactive exhibit in the museum is designed with a multi-sensory approach to help children develop motor, language and social skills in an immersive, supportive environment. 

The children’s museum is furthering this mission through events like Earn & Learn, where children can learn real life skills that they may not get as much exposure to at home or in the classroom. 

“What’s most important is that they will experience the thought and rewards of financial decision making themselves before ever entering the workforce,” Lynch says. “So it’s just a really, really great way to expose children to real world lessons and make it fun to learn about money.”

Bridget Kaigler, the immediate past chairwoman of the Society of Louisiana CPAs, also emphasizes the role that parents play in instilling good spending habits and foundational skills in their children.

“Often, money is not a topic we talk about around the dinner table,” Kaigler says. “Parents may also think that, because they aren’t the perfect example with their own money, they shouldn’t teach their kids about it. That’s not true—they are key to the process.”

Bringing their children to educational events like Earn & Learn is one way parents can teach them these valuable life skills and how to have a healthy relationship with money early on.

Part of what makes this event so unique is that it gives children the opportunity to teach themselves through the hands-on activities—which they can complete in the order they want at their own pace—and experience the rewards of their work by spending their hard-earned tokens on whatever they choose at the Earn & Learn Shop. 

“When they go to the grocery store, they want to push the cart, you know? They want to be the ones to take [items] off the shelf and immerse themselves,” says Lynch. “And so for them to be able to immerse themselves in these real world scenarios and pretend to do everyday things that they see their parents and caregivers do, [it] really helps with their development and their confidence.”

Earn & Learn Financial Literacy Weekend will be held on Saturday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sunday, June 14, with the first session from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the second session from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday’s admission is free, but pre-registration is encouraged.

The Knock Knock Children’s Museum is located at 1900 Dalrymple Dr. For more information about the event, visit the Knock Knock Children’s Museum’s website.