How do i teach my child to count money

How to Teach Counting Money in 1st and 2nd Grade – Primary Delight

Learning how to teach first graders and second graders about counting money can be tricky! American coin values are confusing because they don’t match the size of the coin. Adding to the confusions, kids have to skip count in a number of ways in order count a mixed group of coins. I remember when I first started teaching money to first graders. They got SOOOO confused about switching from counting by 10s to counting by 5s. It felt like an impossible task! But counting money is such a critical life skill – I really got frustrated when these kids couldn’t figure it out!

Then I consulted with co-workers and read from different math curriculum materials. I began to see how counting money was related to number sense and place value skills. I filled some number sense gaps for my students and provided more intentional instruction for counting coins and it got easier for everyone. The following math activities for 2nd grade and 1st grade will make counting money easier for students (hint: the secret to success doesn’t actually use coins…)

1.

Counting money requires that students be able to skip count by 5s, 10s, and 25s. Long before you begin to teach money, practice skip counting with your students. To start, listen to each of them count by 5s and 10s – this will help you identify how much practice your class needs. Once you have this information, you may need to add skip counting routines to your daily morning meeting or math routines, or you may need to meet with a small group of students to practice a few times a week. (If your students are still struggling with subitizing and number sense, check out this post for some suggestions.)

Skip Counting Songs:

To practice skip counting, you can use skip counting songs. Jack Hartmann has some fun ones available on YouTube. Since the Jack Hartmann songs also include dancing and exercise, you can easily use them as a brain break during your day. For instance, in “Count by Tens and Exercise” kids do arm stretches, body twists, and dinosaur stomps as they count.

Skip Counting Cards:

Once kids understand the basic routine of skip counting by 5s and 10s, you can add some skip counting cards to your math stations or math centers. While the songs help with hearing the pattern of skip counting, the cards help students SEE the pattern of skip counting. You can make your own cards from index cards or cute little cut-outs for teachers. As another option, TPT offers a wide variety of choices.

You can make some skip counting cards pretty quickly with pre-made cut-out cards.

Count Around the Circle:

As a morning meeting game, you can have kids count around the circle. First, introduce this activity by counting by 1s, with the first student saying “1,” the next saying “2” and so on. Once they understand the concept, change to counting by 5s or 10s. You may need to display a 100 chart initially to help students identify the next number. To keep the activity engaging, you can time how long it takes to make it all the way around the circle or to 100 (or any other number. ) But remember to support your students who are less confident with the skill – give them a 100-chart or make sure the are the first to say a number (because they are more likely to know the early numbers.)

2. Teach Stop and Start Counting:

Once your students are pretty solid with basic skip counting, you can introduce “stop and start counting.” This routine really helps prepare kids for counting money without having to think about coin values. It is similar to counting around the circle, but you change the skip counting pattern part way through. So you may start by having students count by 5s, then after several students (ex: 5, 10, 15, 20), tell them to stop and count by 5s from the number the last child said (21, 22, 23, 24…) When you begin, only do 5s and 1s. As students become more comfortable with the routine, you can add 10s and 25s and change 3-4 times as you work around the circle (to resemble counting a mixed group of coins.) Expect your students to be slow the first several times, but they will pick up speed as this becomes more familiar.

3. Introduce Counting Money with Coins Slowly:

When you actually introduce counting money with coins, start with only two kinds of coins (ex: nickels and pennies.) Some students will need to practice with only two coins for a longer time. Allow them to count real coins in a small group, or play games with only nickels and pennies. (Real coins may be easier to identify than plastic coins for kids who need additional support.)

Limit the coins on math book pages by crossing out the dimes and/or quarters for these students until they master nickel and penny combinations. As you add dimes, continue to provide practice with only two coins at first (dimes and nickels or dimes and pennies). Then you can use mixed groups of the three coins.

4. Provide Visual Reminders:

Because American coin values do not match coin sizes (and switching between kinds of coins is tricky), some students benefit from visual reminders to help them as they count.

Anchor Charts

It may help your students to have an anchor chart with the coin values displayed. You might even write the skip counting pattern below each coin. They can refer to this as they are counting money during games or other math activities.

An anchor chart can prompt students as they count coins

Dot Coins

If you have a few students who are having a hard time shifting between skip counting patterns while counting money, you might use “coin dots” for those children. This is helpful for nickels, dimes, and quarters. With coin dots, each dot equals 5. So a nickel would have one dot; a dime would have two dots; and a quarter would have 5 dots. Then the student is able to count the coins by counting by 5s. 

Each dot is worth 5 cents. This is one way to make coin counting easier.

Use coins dots sparingly, because it is harder to transfer to counting with real coins, but it could be an appropriate temporary support for some students.

5. Practice with Money Games:

You can add a variety of money games to your math centers or math rotations. They can even be used at the end of whole group lessons to differentiate practice (by matching the coins used to the student’s current understanding of coins.) Once students are familiar with the games, they can also be used as part of a soft start to your school day.

Your students will love playing games in math – the best part is they won’t even realize they are practicing math while they play! Here are a few simple money game ideas:

Coin-Dice:

Create a “bank” with real or plastic coins (you can limit it to nickels and pennies, or do a variety of coins.) Students roll the die and take that many pennies. Once they have five pennies, they put the pennies in the bank and exchange for a nickel. If you play with more coins, they can also exchange coins for dimes and quarters. Continue playing until one child reaches $1.00. (This game is SO easy to use for differentiation!)

Coin Grab:

Place coins in a small bag or sock. (Again, you can vary the coins to meet student needs). Player 1 reaches in and grabs 5 coins (she may choose to pull them out one at a time). Then player 2 grabs 5 coins. Players count coins. The player with the greatest value win this round. On the next round player 2 grabs coins first.

Coin War:

Coin War is played like the traditional card game War. Each player turns over a card and counts the coins shown. The player with the greatest value wins both cards. When there is a tie (a war), students turn over a new card and the winner takes all the cards from that round. Visit my TPT store to find this printable game to count money. The cards are organized by coin type, so it’s easy to differentiate for beginners and experts!

Coin War is a quick and easy way to practice counting coins. The cards are organized by coin type for easy differentiation.

Coin Puzzles:

Coin Puzzles are a great addition to a math station. To complete the puzzles, students match sets of coins to their value. Numerous versions exist – some include only one set of coins per value; others include multiple coin combinations for each value.

Coin Puzzles are a great addition to math centers.

By being intentional in your instruction (focusing first on skip counting, then slowly introducing combinations of coins) you can make counting money easy for your students. Teaching money will be enjoyable and rewarding for everyone involved!

Here’s where you can purchase the games used in this post:

• Coin War
• Coin Puzzles

You might also like:

• Teaching Place Value to 1st Graders
• How to Use Subitizing Cards in the Classroom
• 9 Simple but Fun Math Games for Kids

Teaching Your Child to Count Money

Children might not fully understand the whole concept of money as a measure of value, however, many children like money because they do recognize it as a medium of exchange or method of payment. They generally realize that to buy something they want, they need it. Teaching kids to count money can be a little confusing at first for them, but it is essential since it is one of the basic concepts they will use throughout their lives.

You can introduce the concept of counting money once your child has a basic understanding of simple math. You will then move on to helping them identify different types of currency and their value, and fun counting games can help you do this.

Identifying Coins and Currency

Money comes in various sizes and shape. It also comes in paper and coins. The size doesn't matter — the denomination of money is what matters. Different units of money come with a specific value. While adults understand these simple facts, children may have problems with these facts.

Paper money currently in circulation comes in bills of:

• $1.00
• $2.00
• $5.00
• $10.00
• $20.00
• $50.00
• $100.00

Current coins in circulation come in denominations of:

• Pennies ($0.01)
• Nickels ($0.05)
• Dimes ($0.10)
• Quarters ($0.25)

Of course, you might find also run across half dollar ($0. 50) and dollar ($1.00) coins in your change, but they are a lot rarer to possess.

An essential concept you should convey to your children is that all U.S. money or currency has the dollar as the unit of value. Coins are only fractions of this unit and bills are multiples of this unit. One hundred pennies make up a dollar. Twenty nickels or five-cent coins also make up a dollar, and so forth.

When you can get your kids to understand money is based upon the dollar unit, it will allow you to further explain equivalents to them such as:

• One dime will buy the same as 10 pennies
• A dollar bill will buy the same as four quarters
• Three nickels and one dime will buy the same as a quarter

Learning to Skip-Count

Before introducing money into your child's lesson, teach them how to skip-count. Skip-counting is where you count by multiples of 5s or 10s or 20s. It is a simple way for your child to count bills and coins of most U. S. denominations. Continue practicing skip-counting with your child until they can skip-count all coin values up to one dollar and 100 by 5s,10s, and 20s.

Counting Games

Here are some fun counting games you can implement with your child to make learning how to count money fun:

Hundreds Chart

Create a chart that has 100 squares, labeling each square in sequence with the numbers one through 100. Give your child a handful of different coins and tell them to place each one on the square representing the total value, having them begin with the highest-value coin and working their way down.

For instance, if you give your child three pennies, a nickel, two dimes and a quarter, they would begin with the quarter, placing in on the square with the number of 25. They would then place the dime on the square with the number 35 since the total of both coins comes to 35 cents. They then proceed by setting the next dime on the square with the number 45, the nickel on the square with the number 50 and so on.

Matching Game

Using single coins, create pairs of cards. On one card, put a photo of a coin (or tape a coin to a card). Then, write different coin values on separate cards. Shuffle the cards and have your child practice matching coin cards with its matching written value card. You can even try combining several coins on one card to make the game more of a challenge. Your child can practice adding up the values of the coins on a card with its corresponding written value amount.

Partner Match Game

Here is an excellent game for a group of children. Before starting the game, place sets of coins in individual plastic baggies. Make sure that each baggie has a mate that contains the same value of coins, but use different combinations of coins to match overall totals. To start the game, give each child one of the baggies. Their challenge is to find the partner who has their matching coin total.

Takeaway

Counting money is an essential functional skill for all children. For kids, learning to count money does not just provide them access to items they wish to buy, but it also provides them with the foundation for comprehending the base ten numbering systems that will help them later learn percentages, decimals and the metric system essential for technology, science, and even the social sciences.

Like all skills, using and counting money will eventually teach your child independence, but it all starts with "baby steps."

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10 tips on how to teach children to count money

According to the National Financial Research Agency (NAFI), 61% of parents do not involve their children in family budget planning. However, teaching children financial literacy is a must. You can start from 6-7 years old. We collected 10 tips on how to teach your child the rules of handling cash.

Tip #1: Tell us about the denomination

The child must understand that each banknote or coin has its own value. It is necessary to tell the little buyer how many kopecks are in the ruble, what is the difference between paper and metal money, to teach how to count different amounts of small things. You can visually lay out several stacks of coins of different denominations in front of the child.

Tip #2: Play the Seller-Customer Game

If your children have never gone shopping on their own, you should role-play with them the situation of buying and selling toys, biscuits or juice boxes. It is advisable to use real money so that the child gets used to handling it, correctly counting the amount and change. In addition, this way the baby will understand whether he has enough available funds to buy this or that thing. It will be useful to play different situations by presenting a choice of products that differ in properties and price.

The child must understand that each bill or coin has its own value.

Tip #3: Go shopping together

Sooner or later, your offspring will have to go to the store on their own, so you need to make sure that he understands the essence of money in advance. Beforehand, make a small list of goods that you need to buy on your next trip to the supermarket. Let the child take the products from the shelf and put them in the basket, at the same time crossing them off the list. Moreover, if the small buyer himself takes the first available option or looks only at the colorfulness of the packaging, then it is necessary to teach him to read price tags, study weight and cost.

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Explain to your child that if you buy something a little cheaper, you'll get more change, so you can use it to buy something else that wasn't on the list. You may have something on your list of items that the family can do without today, but without which it will be impossible to cook dinner tomorrow. Tell them that you should first take what you need, and not what you want. Let the child, under your control, pay at the checkout at the end of the trip to the store, receive change and a check.

Tip #4: Make money

Make rules about when a child can be paid for their work. It's not about money for getting A's in school, good behavior, or doing chores around the house. But what is done beyond this may well be valued materially. It is important to agree on everything in advance.

Having started earning money, the child will understand how money is earned, and it is unlikely that he will squander it on the very first day.

Once your child starts earning, he will understand how money is made

Tip #5: Explain that money can run out.

Make a list to illustrate. At the very top of the sheet, write the amount, and below the necessary cost items: for transport, meals at school, cinema, sweets. Every day, cross out the column in accordance with which the money has already been spent, write the rest of the amount. So the child will see that the number has become smaller. If he wants to buy something that is not in the plan, then he will have to refuse something that is already on the list.

Tip #6: Teach the concepts of “need” and “opportunity”

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To avoid wasteful spending, it is necessary that the child understands the difference between needs, opportunities and entertainment. Parents need to tell their child how not to spend more than what you have. At the same time, it is not necessary to say directly “we cannot afford it”, “we have no money”, it is important to bring the little buyer to the idea of ​​rational spending, otherwise the baby will feel poor.

Tip #7: Get used to rejection

Teach your child that sometimes they have to say no to something. Moreover, this may not happen at all because of a lack of money, but, for example, because you need to save up for the purchase of an expensive item that he has long dreamed of. Even if you see that the child has spent the entire amount received without putting a single ruble in the piggy bank, then you do not need to intervene or purchase the same toy or car yourself. Soon the child himself will understand that in order to achieve his dream, you need to cut costs and spend less, refuse to regularly buy chocolates or chewing gum.

Tell your child that sometimes they will have to refuse to buy something.

Tip #8: Teach them how to save

Buy your child two piggy banks or make two transparent jars, one labeled “for current expenses” and the other labeled “for a dream” (this can be a toy, small electronics, original clothes) , accessories). The first of the containers should be slightly smaller, the baby will be able to spend money from it on everything that he needs to buy “now”. However, it is worth recalling here that these funds will run out very quickly if you purchase “trinkets” too actively, or the child will have to wait for the next “income” or work more.

Tip #9: Explain how advertising works

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Schoolchildren and teenagers find it difficult to resist temptations, they are easily influenced by advertising. Tell your child that advertising is aimed at managing the buyer, forcing him to buy even unnecessary ones. Explain that if the baby feels that he had never even thought about buying that toy or headphones in the form of fish, and now he suddenly needed them, then he was hooked on advertising. Advise to postpone the purchase, most likely, in a couple of weeks the child himself will forget about this thing. And it is worth reminding him of this, explaining that judging by the lack of interest, this purchase was not necessary at all.

Tip #10: Teach them not to borrow

Never give money in advance, don't try to buy a child a thing that he is saving for, but he can't do it. So your son or daughter will form the opinion that money can be taken at any time, anywhere, there is no need to try to save or earn it, if there is always an available source nearby. Thus, you will not only avoid the tragedies associated with the lack of funds for the necessary items, but also help the child get rid of the tendency to borrow or borrow. Gradually, the child will learn to manage the available amounts, find a balance between expenses and income.

Learning how to handle money from a young age will help your child not only count money, but also manage it properly. In the future, when he grows up, he will not have problems with budget planning, because he will know how much money he can spend now, how much later, and how much he is ready to set aside to acquire something significant.

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How to teach a child to count to 10, 20, 100

How to teach your child to count

Many children come to the first grade already with counting skills, so it is important for parents to teach them in advance. Today there are many techniques that make it interesting and fun.

Do not impose learning to count, it should be easy: in the course of daily activities or play. Count familiar objects together, gradually complicating the tasks. For example, he easily visualizes two oranges or four plates, but hardly abstract sets.

When to teach your child to count

Most experts believe that the best time to teach kids to count is 3-5 years. It is at this age that the child begins to be interested in new things and learns to establish patterns between numbers. However, everything is very individual. If the baby is actively exploring the world and is interested in mathematics earlier, you can start learning from the age of 1. 5.

What methods to use to teach counting

We have collected proven methods that allow you to do this in a playful way that is interesting for the child.

• Finger counting . The technique helps to understand how to teach a child to count to ten. It will be difficult for a baby to remember all the numbers at once, so you can start with five and focus on the fingers of one hand. Introduce the child to their names, then connect the second hand. You can use finger games when one disappears or two or three fingers meet together.
• Use of study cards and sticks . You can lay them out one by one on the table and name the numbers, then move one part of the sticks to the right and the other to the left and ask how many sticks are in each part.
• Number games . Teaching children to count can take place in a playful way. For example, the role-playing game "shop". You need to choose who will be the seller and who will be the buyer, and assign a currency. Selling or buying sweets and toys, the child will easily remember the numbers up to ten and even up to twenty.
• Montessori method . It's like playing shop. You can give the child different coins, for example, a ruble, two, five, and ask him to calculate the amount or change money.
• Doman technique . The author recommends using cards with red dots for counting. The color will attract the baby's attention.

• Hundred Account Nikolai Zaitsev suggests immediately showing numbers from 0 to 99. So the child will understand how many tens and units each number makes.