Thursday, January 14, 2016

$1.5 billion...

Hallie was working on her current event report for school yesterday. I always scan through the news headlines and point out the ones she might think are interesting. Of course, the Powerball Lottery at an all time high was high on every news site. I first had to explain what the lottery was and how people purchased tickets with hopes of winning the money. Just in explaining how it works, both Hallie and Hunter were hooked. But how do you explain to a kid just how much 1.5 billion is? They have a hard time understanding the different between 10 and 100 or 100 and 1000. I'm not sure I can fully grasp how much money that is.

Hunter asked, "Could you buy a mansion?" Yep, a couple.

"Could you buy a lot of cars?" Yep.

I told him he could buy a professional football team if he really wanted to. That caught his attention.

To put it in perspective we looked up how long it would take to count to 1.5 billion - over 50 years. 50 years of no sleep, no eating, nothing besides counting. The kids were in awe. "That is so much money."

Their next question should not have surprised me..."Are we going to buy tickets?"

I immediately went on to teach a lesson on odds.



1 comment:

  1. Ha ha. We had a discussion on 1 billion as well. Hard to grasp... Now just think of the trillions in National Debt. Oh boy! I digress

    ReplyDelete

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