Money Sense: Count Mixed Change

Here's an entertaining and educational activity designed to introduce your child to the various characters in your change purse--the penny, the nickel, the dime, and the quarter--and learn how to count them all up.

What You Need:

Real Coins. Ignore the temptation to use cardboard or plastic look-alikes. They are ineffective.

Before You Start:

Find out where your child is in his money “sense,” and proceed from there. If he already recognizes the coins and knows the value of each, skip the beginning steps that follow and start wherever he needs direction and practice.

Step 1: Coin Recognition

Using a mixture of real coins, tell the child to place them in like groups (pennies in one group, nickels in another, and so on). Name each coin and discuss its appearance (size, color, thickness/thinness, the words and the graphics on both the heads and tails side). The game “Give Me a Coin” is a great way to practice this skill. Ask your child for a nickel (or a dime, quarter, penny, etc...) If your child hands you the correct coin on the first try, he gets to take it back and put it in his pile. If he hands you the wrong coin, it goes in your pile. Kids also can learn the names of coins by “drawing” shapes--make a square using pennies; make a rectangle with dimes; and so on.

Step 2: Coin Value

Use the same procedure as described in Step 1, but focus on the coin’s value rather than the appearance. Be certain your child understands that the size of the coin has nothing to do with the value. (A penny is larger than a dime, but…) Play the game “Common Cents.” The rules are the same as in the game described earlier except you say, “Give me ten cents” instead of “Give me a dime.”

Step 3: Counting Same-Value Coins

Kids have to walk before they can run, and they have to count coins with the same value before they can count mixed value coins. Have the child separate a batch of coins into like groups, but concentrate on only one group at each session. (Many children will need several sessions before moving on to a new group.) Begin by counting pennies, and proceed from there – nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars.

Step 4: Counting Mixed Coins to $1.00

Teach your child to count mixed coins by placing them in a row, beginning with the coins that have the greatest value and continuing in sequential order down to the coins with the smallest value. Your child will find the value by counting (out loud) from left to right. Example: Two quarters, followed by three dimes, one nickel and four pennies would be counted as twenty-five, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine. There is $.89 cents on the table.

Culminating Activity:

Paying a child for academic achievement is normally not a good idea, but it’s a fun and relatively inexpensive diversion when you’re working with money. Make the reward fit the step you’re focusing on, and save it for the end of the work session. Example: You have finished a lesson in Step 4. Tell your child to give you exactly forty-seven cents. If he does it correctly on the first try, give the $.47 to him as a reward for his hard work. If he falters, tell him he’ll have more opportunities to “earn” some spending money in future work sessions.