Six-year-old Lawrence first-grader Daniel Williams watches a short video about the Chinese New Year while attending a program examining how financial identity develops in children on Sunday at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.

Pinckney Elementary School first-grader Ester Jones learned Sunday that having money in hand can change spending priorities.

Ester was one of 23 first-graders from Kennedy, Pinckney and Schwegler elementary schools who participated in a financial literacy program Sunday at the Lawrence Public Library. Built around Monday’s Chinese New Year, the program used the children’s book “Sam and the Lucky Money” by Karen Chinn to introduce the first-graders to concepts of spending, saving and donating money.

In the story, Sam and his mother take in the sights and sounds of Chinatown on the Chinese New Year. The boy makes the trip with $4 he received from his grandparents for the holiday. Although tempted by sweets and toys, Sam ultimately decides to give the money to a homeless man.

Barbara Phipps, Kansas University School of Education associate professor in curriculum and teaching, said Sunday’s program was part of a multi-year “Invest with Kids” cooperative research project of KU’s School of Education, Center for Economic Education and Center for Public Partnerships and Research with the Lawrence school district and Truity Credit Union.

The project — funded through grants from the National Endowment of Financial Education and the Cloud L. Cray Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. — seeks to discover when children begin to develop financial identity. At the invitation of principals and staff of the three schools, the researchers started visiting with 23 kindergartners about basic financial concepts. The work continued during the students’ first-grade year — an effort that included Sunday’s program. It will conclude next year with “structured interviews” with the then second-graders and their parents, which will attempt to glean what the students learned from lessons shared during the project’s three years.

To help gauge what the 23 students learned, interviews also will be conducted with a control group of second-graders from the same schools who received no financial lessons, Phipps said.

On Sunday, the 23 children received $4 in play money and were given three choices of how to spend all or part of it. They could buy cookies, donate money to the Lawrence Humane Society to buy pet food or put it in savings toward a $34 summer fun day at an amusement park.

The exercise was designed to teach students about “opportunity costs,” Phipps said. ?”They can’t have everything. We want them to understand if they choose something, they have to give up something else.”

When she arrived at the library, Ester said she would spend $1 on cookies and donate the remainder for pet food. She knew of Humane Society needs, because she and her family recently adopted a pet kitten, Arrow, from the shelter, she said.

When it came time to make the choice, Ester instead spent $1 each for cookies and pet food and put $2 away in savings for the summer fun day.

“This way it can grow bigger,” she said of her decision.

In addition to the spending exercise, the students also engaged in activities to teach them about the Chinese New Year, including making dragon masks and learning their Chinese zodiac signs. The day’s biggest treat was reserved for when they left the library. Each family received a free Kindle tablet with a two-year subscription to the eBook content provider EPIC! Phipps said those families in the control group would also receive the tablets next year.

The Kindle was the big draw for Pinckney Elementary first-grader James Whittaker, although his mother, Beth Whittaker, said he has benefited from “Invest with Kids.”

“I think it re-enforces what he is already learning at home,” she said. “He gets allowance, and we have rules about how he spends it. I think this helps him understand delayed gratification, which isn’t easy for anybody in the first grade.”