My daughter has opened a savings account with her job wages this summer. What a powerful lesson to pass on to your children. The best place to start educating your children about investing is with stocks or stock mutual funds. It is easy to identify past performance of stocks and mutual funds.
Information is available on a daily basis that shows on-going performance.
For older children who are investing for a specific purpose such as education, stock mutual funds are less risky than putting money into just one stock. Take your children to the library to look at Morningstar , Kiplinger's Personal finance , or Money . These publications give an idea of how well certain mutual funds have done in the past. Read the articles together and talk about what you've learned. Make investing an exciting, challenging experience.