These simple, Fold & Read American Coin Books are a great way to integrate money, presidents, and rote counting! You may also like our free, printable coin puzzles. *This post contains affiliate links. **The free download can be found at the END of this post. Fold & Read American Coin Books Learning about coins ... Read More about Fold & Read American Coin Books
Using coins is a great way to practice and assess skip-counting. This free money poem is adorable AND effective. The assessment is quick and informative!
FREE printable Piggy Bank Coin Matching activity to teach children to recognize coins and their value in cents.
Teaching money to kids can be challenging. Make sure you aren't confusing kids with these common instructional mistakes.
Looking for a fun way to teach students about coins? Creating a coin graph is a simple activity that will help students identify coins...
Learn tips and tricks about how to teach counting money to 1st and 2nd graders. Learn teacher tips plus fun money activities for students.
Looking for a fun way to teach students about coins? Creating a coin graph is a simple activity that will help students identify coins...
Looking for a fun way to teach students about coins? Creating a coin graph is a simple activity that will help students identify coins...
Activities to Practice Counting Coins 5 comments Freebies, math, math games, Money Money is one of my favorite math topics. Maybe it's because it lends itself so easily to hands-on learning. In second grade, most of the money activities we do are centered around counting combinations of coins. Rather than spend a few weeks covering this skill and then moving on, I make a point of revisiting it as often as I possibly can throughout the school year. Here are a few of my go to activities. Be sure to pin your favorites! Pay the Banker Back in the day, when people still used cameras with film, I hit up our local drugstore photo counter and asked if they could donate any empty film canisters they had. And, they did! I turned those little canisters into banks by cutting a slit into the lid. On the front of each individual bank, I wrote an amount of money using a silver Sharpie. To this day, I still use these banks. When the kids use them, they do so with a partner. I give each pair of students several banks and a baggie of money. The banker selects a bank and tells the other student (the customer) to pay the amount shown on the bank. Then, the banker counts the coins to make sure they got all their money. They take turns being the banker. The kids love this simple little game, and it is the perfect filler for when we have 10-15 minutes before moving on to our next subject area. The teacher in me loves that this activity lets the students easily work at their own level. They can use any combination of coins to pay the banker. So, if they owe the banker 93 cents, they could pay it with 9 dimes and 3 pennies, or they could use a mix of coins if they are at that level. The teacher in me also loves how easy it is to prep: simply bag up some coins, store them in your closet, and grab them when you need them. I haven't used a camera that uses actual film in a very long time and have no idea if they still exist. So, in case these little canisters are now extinct, here are a few alternatives to the film canister idea: bathroom sized plastic cups (I realize they don't have a lid but they would definitely work) multi-purpose mini cups that are often used to hold salad dressing (you probably wouldn't want anything smaller than the 4 oz. size because you need space for the coins to be inserted into the container) Hands-On Activities Hands-on math is the best, and counting coins lends itself beautifully to this. After all, using real money is a real life hands-on skill. And, hands-on learning is both fun and engaging. What's not to love, right? My students love this valuable words activity. They use the key to find the value of each letter in a word, draw them, and then add up the value of the word. Sometimes, I don't even use the word cards. Sometimes, I write words on the recording page before I copy it. And, sometimes, I let the kids pick their own words! Anytime I give my students an activity that involves rolling dice, they are happy campers. So, it was no surprise when they ended up loving this activity. They rolled their die 4 times (but you could have them roll it however many times you want). Each time, they rolled, they drew the coins that matched the number they rolled. Then, they added them up. I like to give my students access to plastic coins whenever they do these sorts of activities. Some of them prefer to interact with the coins and order them in a way that works best for them when adding up the total value. Scoops of coins is another great hands-on activity that my students love. I place small bowls of coins at each table group along with some plastic spoons. The students take a scoop of coins, draw them, and count them up. To differentiate this activity, set up your bowls accordingly. For students who aren't ready for quarters yet, make sure their bowls don't include any. Maybe those students start by scooping dimes, nickels, and pennies. For students who are excelling in counting any and all combinations of coins, give them bowls with quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies, and task them with counting up the value of two scoops of coins. I love using cut and paste activities when I can too. They require that the students pay attention to detail, in addition to practicing an important math skill. Plus, they are a great way to get in a bit of cutting and gluing practice. Whenever I put these activities out, I also put out bowls of coins for students who might need them. Some kids like to use the plastic coins because they need that added support. In my experience, paper clips are just as exciting as rolling dice. My students go crazy for spinner activities. This activity can be used a few ways, students can spin an amount and then color in the coins that add up to that amount. But, it can also be used where the kids draw a combination of coins that adds up to the amount they spin. All of these activities, plus many more, can be found in my Cha-Ching {Counting Coins} unit on TPT. The activities were created to help you differentiate with ease and you can easily reuse many of the activities throughout the school year because students will likely encounter different combinations of coins every time. Race to a Dollar I have loved this game for forever. It makes an appearance every year in my classroom. Students take turns collecting and trading coins, and the first to make one dollar is the winner! Here's a breakdown of the game: It is played in pairs. Players take turns rolling the die and collecting the number of pennies that matches the number they roll (if they roll a 3, they collect 3 pennies). Before passing the die to the other player, the first player looks to see if they can make any trades (5 pennies for a nickel, 5 pennies and a nickel for dime, two dimes and a nickel for a quarter, and so on). Players continue to take turns collecting and trading coins. The first player to get to $1.00 is the winner! **TIP: I have always found that the students are most successful with this game from the get go when I take the time to model it. They usually need to see the trades in action so that they can more easily follow that step when playing independently. I like to sit on the carpet in a circle and play against another student so they can see how it works. This always leads to a more successful experience for the students. You don't need a lot of materials to play this game, just some coins, a dollar bill, and a die. I literally put a bunch of coins (no, I don't count them out) into a zip top bag, along with the dollar bill, a die, and a copy of the directions. Keeping them bagged and ready for use makes them the perfect filler or math station activity. Once your students get this version down, play with dollar bills! Each time they roll the die, they collect that many one dollar bills. The game is played the same way, but the first player to get to $100 is the winner. My students love this version too! You can grab directions for both versions of this game HERE. **TIP: If you want to save paper, you could project the directions on your board for students to look at while they play the game. Thanks for stopping by today! DON'T FORGET IT: PIN IT! Share It:
Sorting activities are the perfect first step in teaching money skills. Use this coin sorting freebie to help children identify the coins.
Download free printable coin identification worksheets, ideal for teaching kids about various coins and their values in a fun, engaging way.
Looking for a fun way to teach students about coins? Creating a coin graph is a simple activity that will help students identify coins...
A simple colouring activity to help your students get familiar with features of Canadian coins...
Teaching money is a lot of fun because there are so many money games for kids and, best of all, kids are so excited to learn how to count co...
Tweet Recently I posted some of my favorite songs and videos about shapes, counting, fractions, multiplication, time and area and perimeter.and now I am happy to share a few of my favorite videos for practicing coins and money. Most of the videos I choose are songs so that I can get kids up and out of their seats moving around. My students are loving these as quick movement breaks and because the weather has been so cold and icy, it has been a great way to get kids some of the extra movement they have been missing due to indoor recess. These videos are ones I use in grades 1-3 with a few being ones I show to Kindergarten even though we don't spend a ton of time on money at that level. You can grab this FREE counting US coins number puzzle from my TPT store. Love number puzzles? Check out the second grade bundle here! Show Me The Money This video has a little bit of everything from coin recognition to coin value and combinations of coins that make others. This is a fairly new video and includes pictures of the new versions of coins. It is by one of my longtime favorite educational song writers, Jack Hartmann. The Coin Song This video reviews the name and values of the coins and also gets into how many of each coin it takes to make the other coins and the dollar. It is also a great review of counting by 5's and 10's. Coin Value Song- Pennies, Nickles, Dimes, Quarters This song is easy for kids to sing along with and is a great way to practice the coin names and values The Coin song- A U.S. Coin Song for Children This one is short and sweet. It is just over 30 second long. I like to play it as a race to clean up and transition to the next activity. When my student hear this come on, they see if they can be picked up and back in their seats ready to go before it stops. The Money Song Many thanks to The Math Spot for sharing this one with me! Hey Honey Bunny! I know my Money Thanks to a blog reader for sharing this one! Be warned, you will be singing this song ALL DAY LONG! Coins! This one has lots of details! Another One from Jack Hartmann: The Money Song! Do you have any favorite videos or songs for practicing coin values, coin names, or counting coins? Check out these other ideas for teaching money! How Much Money? Counting Coins So Does Mine! Coin Identification A Game for Counting Quarters Counting Coins with Second Graders Fun and Free Computer Games: Coin Combo Math Literature for Teaching Money Number Puzzle Fun Counting Coins Number Puzzle FREEBIE This post was updated on 6/29/2020. As of this date all the links were working!
Use this free printable set of coin sorting mats and coin identification puzzles in kindergarten and first grade to help kids begin learning about coins.
Looking for a simple teaching strategy for basic money skills? Counting coins and money is a skills that ALL students MUST have.
In this guide to teaching money and coins in grades K-2, find ideas, activities, methods, manipulatives, games, books, and more for your classroom.
Here's a great line-up of free resources plus money games for kids that teach coin counting, coin recognition, and other money skills.
What are the best ideas for teaching U.S. coins to kindergarten students? Keep young learners engaged with hands-on money experiences!
These coin identification money mazes challenge students to pick out the correct coins and reveal the maze path from top to bottom.
