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| Cash Register Toys for Kids are made in many styles and colors, great for accomodating a child's favorites, in terms of these attributes. Images are clickable, for up to date pricing at Amazon. |
Cash register toys have been popular for decades, though styles change and evolve with the times. More recent cash register toys for kids include scanner devices, and credit card slots, quite often. While many parents berate these toys for encouraging credit card use, a parent can truly make good educational use of such a toy, by interacting with a child, and using it as an early learning teaching tool.
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| Supermarket Cash Register by Constructive Playthings |
There isn't a set age at which your child will be officially ready for a toy cash register, but if you plan to use it as an instructional tool, you should be sure that your youngster is able to handle coins, and that he or she won't try to consume them. Ages one and two are really not ready for the process, and trust me, having a coin extracted from the esophagus of your overzealous toddler is not pleasant. Wait until at least age 3, for a cash register which will involve real money use. There are some safer versions for very young children, with large plastic coins that are swallow proof, but even these are generally labeled for 3+.
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| This Fisher Price Fun 2 Imagine Cash Register uses large, chunky plastic coins, which fit into slots. |
From the point at which your toddler/pre-schooler can count, it's great to use things to count, and coins work well. Money math is a great way to instill the values of different coins, practicing with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Fifty cent pieces, and bills can be incorporated as your child gets older, and learns to handle bigger quantities. Play and practice are very informal, with coins being counted, and traded for those of equal value.
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| Just Like Home Cash Register Toy |
For example, set up a little shop, and price everything in cents, appropriate for the counting abilities of your child. If something is priced at 8 cents, pay in pennies. Have your child try trading some of those pennies for a coin of greater value. Make it a game of how to pay best. A child at this stage may not be ready for making change, but is capable of learning coin exchanges. The cash register toy is merely a fun element of the game...and yes, make the activity a game, because learning is so much more fun when it's relevant, or enveloped in the context of playtime!
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| Melissa and Doug Play Money Cash Drawer |
The play money set, featured above, can be a fun way of providing that same experience, without a cash register. Play money is fine, if you want to work in big quantities, but it's also good to use real coins in order to help your children become familiar with value, feel, and use of real money.
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| Coin Counting Money Jar |
When one of my youngsters was learning math, I gave her a penny for every correct problem. At the end of the week, we had a trading day, where we traded in pennies for larger value coins. This helped her to work well on her math, but also reinforced money values in the process.
For your early learners, ages 4-6, a cash register toy is a great gift, lending itself to fun pretend play, as well as to formal learning. You can find a full selection of toy cash registers here, and a full selection of money counting jars and banks here.
