Gemma hurriedly wrote down each of the examples shared by the students on the board. "
Yes these are all great examples!" she said as she stepped back and turned to the classroom. "
In the beginning, things were not very consistent. For example....The Aztecs used small doll figures made of solid gold to buy things and The ancient Egyptians used ring money. Ring money was an actual ring made of bronze, copper, or gold. In ancient Egypt, people like to wear their wealth. When it came time to pay their bills, they simply pulled off a ring or two to use as payment. The Celts in ancient Ireland also used ring money, plus bracelet money. The Celts also liked to wear their wealth. The ancient Africans invented knife money. As you can see there was a wide variety of things being bartered for services and goods, so you can see the importance of having a more solid way of paying for things. Thus caused the creation of money, but there is still a major issue with money...." she paused as she motioned to the wall of money made by the kids, "
Just like on our wall of money, there are lots of different types of money and they don't all work together. This is true across the world. Pesos from Mexico can't be used in England they must be converted to the local form of money. It would be a lot easier to just have a universal form of money across the world. " she said with a little nod up and down.
"
By not having a universal form of money, it makes it hard for us to understand how much each different form of money costs." she smiled and a poem appeared above her head on the screen. "
This is a poem by one of my most favorite Muggle poets...It's called Smart."
Quote:
My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!
- Shel Silverstein
"
It's talking about USA currency in the poem, but it says something funny about money...what do you think it's trying to say? she said with a little giggle as she read the poem again to herself.