Teaching your child the value of collecting constructively.

I can't say how many times I've heard children say this!

• When I grow up I want to be rich!
• When I grow up I want to be a movie star!

As that list grows, at least there's some honorable wishes from children. They want to be a fireman, a doctor and the list goes on.

While children are little masters at changing their minds I think in today's society children can get a little too much information overflow. With that being said it might be helpful to both your sanity to give them a bit of consistency such as a fun collection and a serious collection. One of course would be beneficial to the child later in life and fun as they grow, the other one being fun, at the same time with a possibility of it being disposable if the child grows bored with it.

This can teach the child something about making decisions later in life. What's important to continue and what could be great information that will follow them through life, giving them the gift of knowledge while having fun doing it.

Lets compare two very common yet very different things.

For instance one could be money the other could be something more fun and versatile. As they grow, their collection of money won't be something that ends up taking up space and a parent doesn't have to make the awful decision of when its time to tone it down and possibly toss it out when they're at school.

In a recent discussion of what someones child should collect this person said their child had an interest in collecting rocks. I asked how their child came to that idea. The parent said she had brought up how fascinating rocks can be and fun to collect. While collecting things like rocks can be fun, it's just my opinion that children should learn about the rocks they've collected or at least be open to the possibilities, both positive and negatives.

Such as how will they store or display their collection and will they make any notes or log the places they found the rocks. Would the child learn the names of these rocks so they grow somewhat informed on the geology of how their rocks were formed, why and even where. Making this rock collection a fun thing that helps them learn without the worry of feeling insecure when someone asks them when or where or even why they decided to collect rocks. Giving your child a bit of psychological ammunition for the possibility of another adult to test them or other children or adults to tell them its a stupid idea to collect rocks because its pointless! People can be like that so it just makes since that a child is informed about what they choose to collect.

Children today have a much more of an array of things to learn about in collecting than ever before. I chose these two diverse options in collecting after a recent viewing of Lucille Ball's movie, The Long Long Trailer! The slap-stick comedy starring Lucy and Desi as a couple who decide to buy a very long trailer in which Lucy ends up collecting a rather large assortment of rather large rocks to have as memories from their travels as mementoes from places they visit.

Then you'll see WHY I gave the child the answer to collect money rather than rocks! After all, if you look into your future, which would you possibly need more and want to keep growing regardless of your age?

One of the best ways to get your child to learn saving money and making it fun, is letting them think it's a game! From collecting the faces, to learning origami, to trying to fill their piggy bank, or decorate it! Any way you make it fun for them, is another way to get them to save money rather than run out and spend it.
I know a 14 yr old girl who has over $5,000. in the bank because she was taught to make it fun, and see if she could be the first of her friends to buy her very own car when she turned 16. Not only is she responsible, she'll probably be the first in her class when it comes to economics and learning to save money! :)

Well, as you can guess I personally think collecting is much more constructive than collecting rocks! DON'T get me wrong, I have rock that I've collected too! (Maybe more than money lol, so who am I to judge) :) I live by Atlantic Beach, and every now and again I head down to the Ocean to see what pretty rocks or shells it's brought in with the tide! Some of them, so pretty and smooth, and CLEAR when wet, you'd almost think they were a glass nugget brought in from a shipwreck! A lot of great adventures for a child to think of when collecting small rocks, so I'm not saying at all, for them NOT to collect rocks, because there can be some very interesting and actually historical value to collecting rocks too!

I mean, after all, some people get paid to dig in the dirt and collect strange rocks, as well as pretty good pay! I have a friend who is in college to be an Archeologist, so I would never advise against doing so! It's a great paying job, and not only that, it can take you around the world, which is a whole other way of traveling our world to learn!  I'm kind of talking on a smaller "getting started" collecting, and something that is almost certain to be there to help you out in a tough time rather than a child who might decide that biggest one would look so cool on mom's freshly painted & decorated shelf!

When I saw this group of people trying to help this little boy try to figure out what he wanted to collect I was just in awe that I see so many "HOW DO I GET RICH, OR MAKE A LOT OF MONEY FAST ONLINE?" questions, telling this boy to collect rocks, I thought, WHY are they NOT telling this boy that collecting money would be a good idea for his future!

It doesn't even have to be "just save money" after all, we don't want to bore the poor child!! We want to make him happy in his decision of what to collect! So I thought, maybe saying, collect "pennies with a certain date" or maybe "collect dollars that have a certain ending number on them" or how about "try collecting any coins that end with your birthday number!" I thought that would of been a great one because it would of been A. Collecting something specific to him, which would bring a smile to any kids face, or B. Get him to collect a bunch of coins to go through them later when he is claiming to be bored! It would be a neat thing to do during a time of boredom!

There's a lot of things a kid can do with a boring old jar! I've seen people use them for all kinds of things, painted, decorated and used for flower vases, but one cool idea for something plain, would be making it unique!

Say, you want to do this for your child, but your child has friends inside to play! You, nor your child want little friends to be in on this collection! Well, maybe put a few rocks out :) and THAT collection is the "default" collection... the "undercover" collection! So, it could be a neat idea to maybe use the jar as a diversion. Make two! Fill one with rocks, gently as to not crack the glass, but it would then be too heavy to pick up! Then there's always the second one.. the one you let him glue things to the outside of! Like little pebbles! Take it to the beach with you, bring some spray glue so it's not a big mess, and spray it on the jar and then roll it a bit around in the sand! Maybe even dirt in your yard!! Then spray over it so when it's brought inside you don't have a mess! Then glue some to the lid!

FOR A GIRL: Shells would be pretty on the outside! Take a bit of fluffy lace and glue it to the outside rim of the lid, and maybe a Littlest Pet Shop extra piece to the top or any extra popular toy that your child would be glad to have sitting on top, and it's an "untouchable" to others who might be in her room! That way her money jar stays safe, and decorative as well!

FOR A BOY: Maybe some pebbles glued to the outside, and a Hot Wheel car or even a part from a McDonald's toy on top! If you've covered it with dirt then sprayed varnish on the outside, there's no worry of it making a mess, and a car or truck that fits, with a few small pebbles or rocks around it would be a good decorative thing for a boys room, and one less likely for other boys who are playing indoors, won't go through it and try for a handful of change!!

Either way, between Mom, Dad and child, you can all put your idea's in on what would be the best container for your child's "NEW MONEY COLLECTION."  (Something other kids probably aren't doing! Myself, I used to save dimes! At first I kept a little change purse, that only had DIMES in it, and I kept it in the pocket of an old jacket! I never worried of who would look for it! but I really didn't have friends in my room once I realized they were trying to play with some of my toys that were "off base to friends." :)

So, your child has decided to collect bills! Maybe not 5's or 10's.. but Foreign currency! Sure they're harder to come by than the average money wherever you live! But there's a great way to trade!

Meet up with other money collectors, who might or might not be children! You might make an even exchange or you might not! Here's why!

• COST AND WORTH ARE TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS!

Here's my example! I went to a town auction once, and there was a bag full of foreign currency! Well, it just so happened at the time I had a few hundred bucks to spend. I HAD NO IDEA when I looked over the stuff how much this baggie of money was worth! I didn't recognize ANY of the bills! They were sure colorful though! It was a cooking baggie, so maybe about 10 inches high and wide! It was half full with every color of the rainbow and then some, different sized bills, bills with more than one color! We weren't allowed to open it so I just looked at what I could from the baggie, and sat it back down knowing to wait for it to come up to the auction block!

Finally! The moment Rich, the guy who ran the actions picked up the bag and said "Ok, here I have a bag of money and I have NO IDEA how much it's worth, so I'm going to start the bidding at $10. Well, I'd already been to quite a few auctions so I learned the way to discourage others who could bit against me, was to shoot my card up and just hold it! If you take your hand down each time, that implies you're willing to give up at some point. Well, I wasn't and I knew nobody there would outbid me if I just HELD MY HAND UP. So that's what I did! As soon as he said "Starting at $10. do I have a bid for $10." My arm shot up in the air with my card, and FIRM! NOPE I'm NOT going to be outbid so try, but I WAS taking that bag of currency, and I wasn't going to let it go! That was that! MINE!!!!! (hahaha)

Well, as it turned out, there was someone else who wanted it too! I made it a point to only glance at my other bidder. Usually the "nice" rule is not to bid against a friend or someone you usually met or talked to at the auction house. So I just listened for Rich to say "$15.00".. my hand did not drop nor did I flinch! Rich blurts out $20. - $20. Uh oh, someone else was in on it! When there's a double call, he was waiting for me to either drop my arm or to get another bidder in. Nope! $25. - $30. - $35. $40. My hand wasn't budging, I heard $45. $45.. is anybody going to bring me a $50.? Nope! No $50, "going, going.. LAST CHANCE... " Sold for $45. to number 72 (I always seemed to get that number!! I don't know why) LOL. Anyway, so I sauntered up, snagged my bag of money, looked them up when I got home and NONE of the bills, even altogether added up to $45.

I brought them home, sprayed water on them, put them in beween white paper and inside a book and the next day ran a warm iron on them! So they'd be smooooth and flat! So that's how I launder money :)

Was I ripped off?

NOPE! I sold the money on eBay (when it was thriving) and 150%, plus had a few keepers to add to my own collection of foreign money! So, I came out ahead, and still have some, maybe next time I really need extra American money and don't have it, I can CHANGE IT :) ha! :)

Let's see a kid turn his rocks into something cool like this! :)

You have to admit that learning how to do this is A LOT more fun than a ROCK! I mean what kind of fun can you have with a rock?

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH A ROCK COLLECTION:

• You can throw it and break the neighbors window and get in a heap of trouble :::gasp:::

• You can line them up in a row, and pretend you impressed your friends!

• You can name your rocks! Much like the pet rocks!

• You could play, "Adopt a Rock" by getting friends to buy them from you! (then add to your money collection. YaY! (Sounds like a winner to me) :)

• Best off all, you can take the rocks and wrap wire around them and give them to your relatives at Christmas for jewelry, or "lucky tokens" then you didn't have to spend any money, so the rock could have some uses! And disappointed friends and relatives but hey, it didn't cost anything!

WHAT YOU CAN'T DO:

• You can't string them together and hang them on the Christmas tree!

• You can't bring all 999,999,999 of them with you just to show Grandma! Well, you could, but it'd be heavy and could cause your dad's car to get a flat! (Parents beware of the overload if you child starts to collect rocks!)

• You can't put them in your little brother or sisters backpack, cos they'll know YOU DID IT!

• YOU CAN'T FILL YOUR POCKETS WITH THEM! OUCH!

• You can't bring them all to school for show and tell! Well, you could, but you'll probably get a C-

• You can't Origami them and make something cool, like Lincolns head with a hat, or a cool shirt like in the photo!
  

Maybe check out a few cool things you can do WITH money if you decided to collect money instead of rocks! Not only can you put a name and date on the inside edge, saying where you got it from, or where you traveled and got that one dollar change from, if you Origami it, then you can impress just about anybody! Especially someone you like! Girls or Boys! You can WOW anybody with Origami and there's LOT'S of super patterns, they go from pretty easy like thees above to some harder ones as you'll see as you learn! Get the easy ones down so you can show off in front of friends, and be the cool one at the next birthday party or even use them AS a gift (the ones you aren't saving for your collectible that might make you rich someday.)

In any event, you've got to admit, money can sure be a cool thing to collect! Lots of ways to save it, store it and even show off with it. Of course never show off what is behind the poster on the wall, that's for your eyes only, but there's a few you can keep out just for showing off! :)

I think this wraps it up so to speak!

If you think you can find something cooler to collect than money, then go for it!

I think I've stated my case pretty good myself! I get an A for the day! HA! :)

I hope you have fun if you make any of the Origami items, if you want to see other really cool ones, there's plenty on YouTube, and just various places on the net! They give FULL instructions, I tried not to use ones with annoying background music :) so this way you can hear the person talking on how to make each thing!

I really like "The DIME diamond ring" it's really neat! So, there ya go, not only is there a chance to make something with a bill, but there is a coin as well! And WHAT IS IT'S WORTH?

1. $1.10 .... OR is it Priceless if you give it to someone as a gift!
2. As I said, WORTH AND VALUE ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!

If you've decided to start collecting money, even if it's in your hidden piggy bank, behind a photo, laundered so it's perfectly straight, then get started and GOOD LUCK!