When we return from Spring Break, we are going to start digging into coins and counting money. 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? Last week, we had a few days before Spring Break with extra time that 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?
A great game to play with kids is what I call Coin Toss. Give kids a small dixie cup with coins in it. You can differentiate by putting different coins in. I include quarters and half dollars if kids are ready for those and start out my kids who are struggling with just pennies, nickels and dimes. The partners dump the cup on the carpet. One kid takes heads and the other tails. Each kid counts their portion of the coins to see which pile is more. The kids never seem to get tired of practicing their coins counting skills with this.
ReplyDeleteOh, I just love this idea! :) Thank you so much!!!
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