1-2-3 Come Do Some Coin Activities With Me!

Since President's Day is in February, I did a lot of coin related activities with my students during that month.  We learned a bit about our US presidents at the same time practicing coin identification.

I made up a set of coin anchor chart posters that you may find helpful. Print them off; mount on a variety of colors of construction paper; laminate and then affix a real coin using a glue dot.  They make a nice bulletin board, as well as giant flashcards.

The packet also includes entire sheets of each coin, so that you can make manipulatives, games, and math centers. 

There are also separate templates for each coin featuring the head and tail side. Simply fold, cut, glue and laminate.  Punch a hole at the top and suspend them from the ceiling. 

Several coin conversion posters are included as well.  i.e. How many pennies make up each coin?  This anchor chart is a fun way to practice skip counting by 10s, as I made lots of groups of ten pennies.

Another visual that I use is a coin Venn diagram.  I believe that if a child has to compare and contrast the coins, it will help them identify them as separate units. 

You can do these as a whole group, as an independent worksheet or partner activity.  I pass out real coins for children to examine.  Completed projects make a nice bulletin board.  Making a coin Venn diagram also helps reinforce descriptive writing, as children use lots of adjectives while comparing.

Since putting a puzzle together, was one of our Y5's standards, as well as counting backwards from 10 to 1 and skip counting by 10s, I designed these coin-themed number puzzles. 

Print and laminate for an independent center, or run them off and give children a choice.  They color, trim, mix up their pieces and then put their puzzle together.  For an interesting mosaic craftivity, have students glue their pieces to a sheet of construction paper, leaving a small space in-between each piece.

Ten frames are also wonderful for visual learners.  With that in mind, I designed a set of 10 frames for pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, plus extra tiles of each, so you can run them off and use them as manipulatives. Click on the link to view/download the 10 Frames Coin Packet.

There's nothing like saying "Would you like to play a game?" to grab your students' attention.  I used dice to help my Y5's  subitize, (Quickly identify how many in a group, without having to count.) so I designed the Coins On A Roll dice game. 

Simply run off the coin bookmarks.  Students pick a partner and take turns rolling the dice.  If they roll a one they color in the penny.  If they roll a two, they color in the second coin, which is a nickel and so on.   However, if someone rolls a six, they lose their turn. 

The first child who colors in all of the coins on ther bookmark is the winner.  The game is also a nice opportunity to review ordinal numbers as well. Before the game starts, ask children what the first coin is, the last coin, third coin etc. is.  Later, when children are done playing the game, for a quick whole-group assessment, have them cover the names of the coins and ask them to: "Point to the penny."  "Now point to the quarter." and so on.  Click on the link to view/download the Coins On A Roll dice game.

If your school requires you to send homework home, or if you need some coin-themed worksheets for early finishers to do, click on the link to view/download the 10-page Coin Worksheet packet. These are also great for Daily 5 word work or a sub folder.  

For a more advanced activity, students can make a Flip For Facts File Folder. They are a simple and effective way to introduce research to early elementary students.  Children search for interesting facts Online, choose their favorites, and then put them into their own words. 

As with my other flip for facts file folders, I've included several pages of how to explain citations to your kiddos. Helpful links are also provided.  The Flip For Facts File Folders are a nice pre-cursor to writing a report. 

Finally, to help review coin facts as well as grammar, I designed 30 coin-themed grammar cards. Students circle letters that should be capitalized and add end punctuation. 

You can do this with a pocket chart and call on students, or pass one card out to each child, to correct with a dry erase marker. 

After eveyone has shared their card, have students choose 3-6 cards and rewrite the sentences correctly.  This is a great Daily 5 word work activity.

That's it for today.  Thanks for visiting. I hope you found a few things to help make learning about coins a bit more fun. 

For all of my FREE coin activities, click on the link to zip on over to the money section of TeachWithMe.com

The wind is howling outside my window, so it's time for a well-deserved hot cocoa break.  Wishing you a warm and snuggly day.

"Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen, on the 'gotta have it' scale." -Zig Ziglar