It seemed easy to get valuable worthwhile books for under a dollar fairly often, over a decade ago, and up to ten or $20.00 without stretching the budget much at all - plus the time spent reading worthwhile books and learning from them as possible, was priceless in some or many ways. The older the books, the better potential it seemed - actual true good information , verifiable, and very different from television (and now media/internet/etc) which was and is always trying to sell something that is not good for people.
Yes, reading and monoply and easemoney were good for the kids to learn reading (and writing) and math even a year before kindergarten. I still 'wish' we had been taught ourselves to have a garden every year, and then had trained all the children in the neighborhood likewise to have a garden, individually or shared....
I love having "honest work" to do frequently, because when we are working , for pay or not, there's no idle hands and bored minds to get dumbed down by the video sources/ infomercials/ advertising/ all sorts of wrong stuff.
they should be encouraged to accomplish ..taking care of their homes.....food...resources they will need....we call them...chores....oh...lovely chores
My daughter is raising her grandkids all 4 of them ages 10,8,6 and 4,[ 8YO does stay with her father and his wife most of the time but the other 3 are in her custody. I try to tell her to give them chores, but she is busy with helping her hubbys business and moving into new home he built. She said her biggest demand was a fenced yard and inside pool, She does too much for those older kids. Out of my 6 grandaughters 2 got on drugs one ended up in prison. I guess 2 out of 13 grands in this time and age isn't bad.All other's have good jobs and do ok take care of their kids and none on government assistance so far. Of course that could change. So far we're blessed.