December 30, 2004
Kwanzaa Day 4: Ujamaa
Well, better late than never...
The fourth day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to the practice of ujamaa, cooperative economics. A children's book of Kwanzaa crafts, "Kwanzaa Fun: Great Things to Make and Do," further defines ujamaa:
"...Using our money and talents wisely so that we all may prosper. We cooperate by sharing money, taking responsibility for our work, buying things together, and using our money to help others who are in need."
For my children, who are four, I decided we would start with just a simple lesson on what money is.
We brought down their piggy bank and emptied out some coins and dollar bills. (I decided not to tackle the two-dollar bills that the bank is stuffed with. I wonder if all parents of twins get these off-looking bills as gifts as we did.) Working with my stored knowledge from my early childhood ed teaching days, I first asked them to talk about what they already knew. Surprisingly, they knew quite a bit: several names of the coins (though not matched to their correct denominations), that the dollar bill was made out of a special paper, that you buy stuff with it, that their Daddy gets paid with it.
Good start.
I then talked about the names of the various coins and how many pennies, or cents, each was worth. The dollar equalling 100 cents got the hoped-for expression of awe...
Anyway, not to bore you with my wonderful teaching lesson: We did this for a while, talking, observing, noticing similarities and differences between the coins, me explaining what is pictured on the coins and bills. Then they drew pictures of money--Quite impressive in their level of detail, if I may so brag!
Then they each chose $2.00 worth of "their own money" and we went to Har Mar Mall.
I tried to vocalize how much things were as I was paying for things, taking time to let them see how much money I was taking out (and avoiding using the debit card) and naming the coins--much to the annoyance of the clerks we encountered. I paid for the "Sponge Bob Square Pants" movie tickets as well as the popcorn and drink. Then we walked down to Michael's craft store--On the way we encountered a gumball machine (actually a disturbing combined gumball, pinball, and plastic religious toy prize contraption)and they were able to use their own money to buy their own gumball. At first they wanted to buy more gum, but I suggested that they save the rest of their money until we got to the craft store.
Once at Michael's their lesson continued. We talked about the holiday things now being on sale (50 to 80 percent off!) and about some things costing more money than we had available. On their own they decided to each get two different sets of decorations-on-a-stick so that they could then share them and have four different things to play with instead of just two duplicate things. They bought these and a few other clearance items with their money, got their receipts and bags. I paid for the clay and other items for an upcoming Kwanzaa project. At the end of the day they even each had 5 cents left over to put back in their bank.
I thought this day was a pretty good start for both ujima and ujamaa in action. I also wanted to do something with them around charity and public service, but decided to wait and think more about how to do that in an effective and sensitive way.
So, a very nice day. And not a whiff of communism or socialism--In fact, a pretty capitalist outing.
Posted by perry032 at December 30, 2004 07:37 AM | TrackBack| Printer-friendly version