Counting Money

Hello it's Allison from Stuckey in Second! Hope you are all having a great SPRING! We are finally starting to have a few beautiful "spring-like" days here in Indiana.

 

 

Right now, in second grade, we are working hard on learning the value of coins and how to count money. I wanted to share a few things that we have done in class!

 My kids never do as well with this as I hope they will, so I'm looking for more inspiration. What is the best thing you do to teach your students money? This year,  I started to introduce things and we did a few activities for me to try to gauge where they are when it comes to money.

We read the short coin books that are shown laying across the top of my anchor chart and as we read it, we added these details to our anchor chart together. My plan is to get them to really "know" the coins so that they will remember what each one is worth.

Then to gauge where they are, I gave them this simple task of showing me as many ways as they can of making 25 cents. Most of them did pretty well. I gave them this fun "March" notepad paper to make it more engaging. Plus, the coins kept them pretty engaged.

 

I'd love to hear more from other 2nd grade teachers. What are your favorite money activities? What are your strategies?

 

 

After I posted about Introducing Coins and Counting Money on my own blog,  I asked for feedback and Teacher Gone Digital gave me a great idea for a quick and easy coin counting game that she calls Coin Toss!

We did our introductory Envisions lesson on coins, there was a game included, but I quickly decided that Teacher Gone Digital's game would work much better for me to see exactly what my kids know at this point. So, I explained it to them and we had a blast! My students already know how to play addition top-it (from Everyday Math) and we play that often, so I named the game "Coin Top-It."

Students were put into pairs and each pair got a cup of coins. I had put them in boy/girl pairs (just happened to work out perfectly!)  

They dumped the coins out on the floor between them.

 

I told them all of the girls were heads and the boys were tails. So, they started sorting their coins however they landed on the floor.

Then, they each counted "their" coins (heads or tails). I had to remind them to not just COUNT the coins, but to actually count up how much money. One could have more COINS, but it could be worth less money. So, the "top-it" part comes into play when they are motivated to count their coins and check each other to determine who "tops" the other/has more money. Then, they just put all of the coins back in the cup and start again. EASY!

I had to work with one student because of the odd number. After working with him for a bit, I started "trading him out" with other partners, so that I could get some quick one-on-one time with students and counting money. Each student that I taught some tricks to, I told them to go back and teach their partner that trick, since I couldn't get to everyone. They loved it!

I showed them how to sort their pile of coins, then start with the quarters, then count up by tens or fives, etc.

This worked out really well and I'm glad we did this instead of the game that was planned today (straight from the book). I love when last minute decisions work out so well. This will definitely be a game that we play many more times!!! Thank you again to Teacher Gone Digital! Check out her blog!

We have been having fun with coins!