How to teach how economy works ?

[mom17]

DS (aged 9) was reading world history and question of economy , financial crisis came and he asked me and I don't know How to tell all that at his level and most of this is pretty complex topics. Any books/video which can help understanding at child's level.

I explained it in terms of the Wall Street crash, it's a very simplistic cause and effect example of how and why economy breaks down and the vicious circle of getting it going again. Initially I explained it to dd very simply in terms of lots of people working in places making one off items like cars, and when everyone had a car they stopped selling, everyone lost their jobs and couldn't buy regular items, so the people in clothing manufacturing etc lost their jobs and so on. ( she was about 5 and it was off the back of a question on the depression from watching Annie). Then when she understood that and was a bit older we went into more detail about the Wall Street crash because it is a simple example, and once she could apply that knowledge to other examples of economy we looked at other factors like war, immigration etc.
The other simple example off the top of my head is the Oklahoma dust bowl and the migration to California.
Can't advise on web sites but even if your history is sketchy I'm sure either of those will come up on Wikipedia or similar with enough basic details for you to explain economy from.

How about starting with the Dutch Tulipmania in the 1600's?

If you are feeling brave, you could then pop over to eBay to show him how some people are willing to pay a lot of money for toys they consider to be rare.

If you find out, can you teach the Labour party and SNP please?

Thx everybody, all pointer looks good specially Wall street crash and Tulipmania. I saw one game on BBC BiteSize , will try that. But I guess even to reach that point, lots of information like what is stock, How it works needs to be explained.

Hazlitt is a really good starting point for simple explinations of things like credit. try Economics in One Lesson

like these ideas. 8yo ds was asking me about the stock exchange the other day, he saw their huge spinny graphic display behind a reporter on the news and it led on to a chat about stocks and shares.

If you live in or near London, there is a very good museum at the Bank of England which looks at the history of money, modern day inflation etc. It is free to get in.

Dina1234, what is Hazlitt ? Can you pls. tell me a URL to understand more.

Got it Dina1234, I found "economics in one lesson".. Thx

This book is really good, and short
www.goodreads.com/book/show/270746.A_Short_History_of_Financial_Euphoria
just do not buy it from Amazon

And I recently read this
[[https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-do-we-fix-this-mess/robert-peston/9781444757125]

And the Economist website has lots of articles which are a lot less dry than you'd think ...
THis blog
www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail
bases each article around a picture

The FT on Saturday magazine I think still does a regular column explaining everday issues in terms of economics (before that there was Mrs M and her cost centre DCs complete with sunk costs and diminishing returns). I grew up reading the FT on Saturday and went on to do an economics degree.

My first uni lecturer used to explain everything in terms of his doughnut shop. I would start with microeconomics and supply and demand at the corner shop before trying to tackle the money supply, beggar thy neighbour exchange rate policy, irrational exuberance and the like.

nice one!!!

Donaldson - 10x economcs or economics of the real world. Both very accessible books and interesting

You can read them and explain in a more child friedly way.

My DS has learnt the basics of economics brilliantly from playing Sim City - he really got the hang of how money was constrained, and how you had to balance where to spend it, couldn't raise taxes too high, got long term benefits from investing in education and all sorts of things. Boom and bust and the Wall Street crash is probably the next step up, but DS is doing GCSE economics now and learning all that stuff, but still refers back to what he learned on Sim City - he loved playing it too.