Show Me The Money!

When I first started teaching, I was shocked to discover many of my students didn't know the worth of coins, or the number of coins it took to make a dollar. Years later, I find the students still don’t come to school with this info. It doesn’t seem to be a focus at school, or a habit at home. It still shocks me, but now I'm doing something about it. Every morning I give my class 'Money Math' activities to do. I hand out handfuls of plastic coins and have them sort and count them. Then they add the coins together to get the total amount. The first month or two of school this requires a great deal of teacher assistance, but the students love it when they learn it. Some individuals need desk top coin charts to remind them a quarter is 25 cents, a dime is ten, etc., and I keep posters in place throughout the year with the coin faces, values and a break-down of coins per dollar (4 quarters = one dollars, 10 dimes = one dollar, and so on). This is a bell-work or morning warm-up activity that the class can, after some time, so independently. I also put time problems for them to solve ("What time would it be 40 minutes from now?") and there are plastic clocks available for assistance. The students answer the time problems in analog and digital fashion. The class learns how many minutes are in an hour and how many hours are in a day. I require the class to learn the days of the week, months of the year, the years in a decade, as well. Wall calendars, personal agendas with calendars and posted reminders help keep this information accessible. No matter what grade the students are in, I find these activities to be relevant, and necessary to know, so each child can function with ease in society at large. Plus, they find it fun.