Counting with Coins

Money is still a bit of a foreign concept to my son (not how to spend it, just how to count it). He often forgets how much each coin is worth and what they’re called.

To help him with this, I created an activity that he can do again and again. It’s similar to Dice Roll Math but uses a homemade spinner. Using Print Shop software, a glue stick, clear contact paper (for added durability), scissors, a hole punch, recycled cereal box for sturdiness, and a brad, I made a spinner picturing the four most common coins (who uses a half-dollar coin anymore?).

Before my son started spinning the thing like mad, though, we read a few books that I checked out from our local library by Rozanne Lanczak Williams. My favorite was “Learning About Coins.” It was simple enough and helped him understand the values of each coin.

Afterwards, he spun the spinner and wrote the value of the coin that the arrow pointed to on a worksheet I made for him. One more spin and he had a math problem to add the two coins’ values together. He completed six problems and by the end of the activity wasn’t even using the key I’d created at the top of the worksheet (i.e., quarter = 25 cents; dime = 10 cents, etc.)!

When this becomes 'easy peasy' (as he would say), I'll modify the problems to add more than two coins' values.

If you want to make a spinner of your own, download the template here. The worksheet is available as well; click here.