Money skills
The Barter Market
Suggested age: Ages 5 to 10
Titi has no money, just a basket of things. Trade them at the market until she gets what she wants!
Choose the difficulty
For parents and caregivers
How The Barter Market helps your child
In the story Papelitos de Colores, Titi discovers that money is for exchanging. This game shows what came before: bartering, trading things for things.
How to play
Titi wants a toy, but she only has a basket of things. At each market stall a Mora friend gives one thing and asks for another. Your child drags what they ask for from the basket (or taps the thing and then the stall). Nobody has the toy in exchange for what Titi brings: trades have to be chained. If a friend doesn’t need what’s offered, they say so, with no penalty. Some stalls don’t help: trading there is an extra trade. On easy one trade is enough; on hard it takes three and one asks “2 for 1”. At the end, Grandpa brings colored papers and you buy in one step.
What they’re learning
They understand why money exists: with bartering you have to find someone who wants exactly what you have, and with money everyone accepts the same thing. They also practice thinking backwards (“who has what I want? what do they ask for?”), comparing the value of things and planning before trading. Dragging with a finger works fine motor skills.
Ideas to keep going at home
- Play at bartering with toys or cards: what would you trade for this? Is it fair?
- Ask them what’s easier: trading things or paying with money, and why.
- Read Papelitos de Colores together and find where Titi creates her own money.
A tip from Mora: play together for a short while, 5 to 10 minutes, and talk when you finish. Screens work best as a starting point for family conversations rather than as a solo activity: real learning happens in the conversation, which is the heart of the Mora method.