Math About the House. . .Money-- Early Elementary

Many of you know that math is my thing.  I come from a long line of people who do like math.  Growing up my father loved to make everything into a math problem.  He would encourage us to do the extra problems in the back of the book.  Life was about math.

Though I would like to say I am like my dad,  sometimes life gets in the way of thinking mathematically.  As home educators we have so many opportunities to incorporate math into our  life.  I thought I would begin to post some ideas(reminders)  of how to incorporate math into our day. I am planning on taking my own advice.    I am going to do these by math topic.  Today's is money. 



Change Purse Dump

Simply dump your change from your wallet and help your student count it.  Money can be a challenge for some kids.  This is a great way to practice counting money.

My old wallet  with change. 

Rolling up Change

Collect all the change you have been meaning to roll and take to the bank.  Have your kids count them.

The Great Exchange

This is a great dice game to play with your kids.  It teaches the idea of money equivalency.  You will need the following: one or two dice depending on the skill level of your student, many pennies, and some nickels.

1.  The player rolls the die/dice.
2. They take the number of pennies of their roll.
3. When they get up to 5 pennies they exchange them for a nickel.  I would recommend modeling this first, and having your child say out loud " I am exchanging five pennies for a nickel."  That seems to help them.
4. Continue taking turns. 

You can also play this with dimes.  You can change pennies to dimes.  I would start with nickels and pennies, and then move to only pennies and dimes.   As as your student becomes more advanced use pennies, nickels, and dimes.

The key to this game is modeling, and making sure Everyone announces what they are doing out-loud.

Playing The Great Exchange

~ Becky