Money

     Remember the 5 gallon jug filled with coins? I bet you could find a few people that cashed in on a rather big purchase once it was filled up.  You could find a penny laying on the sidewalk for good luck quite often in the good old days. Counting change used to be a pastime for many kids, yet very few people have a pocket full or purse full of coins anymore.  Debit cards and EBT cards are the way most items seem to be paid for these days.  There are even a few places that no longer take cash.  Identifying coins can be difficult for  kids, especially since in the late 1990's quarters started having different state backgrounds on them.  It is fun for kids to try and collect each state, but I find that students still seem to be confused with looking carefully at coins to be able to see the difference between a nickel and a quarter. Children also have trouble identifying a nickel, dime, or quarter and remembering which value to assign to each coin. This video featured on schooltube is fun to watch.  Coins in My Hands Video

     Counting by quarters, something that it seemed the majority of students could do in years past, is now starting to be difficult.  I am guessing that vending machines rarely have anything in them that cost 50 cents or 75 cents.  Add that to men no longer have pocket full of change to share with the kids or grandkids anymore and woman's purses are definitely lighter without their coin purse over flowing.  The problem is that for a student to have number sense and mental math these common place manipulatives are no longer readily available.  That means teaching a young kid to do mental math when paying for his item is much more difficult for him to tangible visualize when swiping his parents ATM card rather than counting out coins and dollars.  Even vending machines show when the correct amount of money has been put into the machine, doing the math for the child.  Here is a few activities you can do that don't take long. 1. Have your child identify a coin and tell you the value of the coin. 2.  Listen to your child count aloud by quarters.  3. Have the child start with a quarter and add dimes (25,35,45,55,65,75) .

If you teach life skills class or work with teens that need to know how to compute change without relying on the cash register to give them the answer I have published the book Making Change.  There are a few businesses out there that still test future employees by expecting the person to demonstrate the proper way to make change, the old fashion way, by counting up.       

Making Change 

Online sites I enjoy     Math Playground        Mr. Nussbaum's site

                                     Smarty Games            Sheppard Software
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