Learning about Money

Buddy has a fascination with money and recently found my money set from when I taught school.  He has asked to play with it several times and I've let him just explore the different pieces.  Today, I decided to be a little more structured.  Buddy is still learning to identify the different coins and so we did a sorting activity.  I put a handful of the coins on the coffee table and pulled out one coin of each variety to make a row. 

I then asked Buddy to sort the coins and group them together.  I would name each coin that he would pick up, quarter, dime, etc.  After about three coins of each type, he was able to identify them correctly most of the time.  Obviously, pennies are the easiest and were his first choice.  In hindsight, I would have not used the dollar coins and half-dollar coins since they are not as prevalent in circulation and would have stuck with the basic coins.

 Buddy had a fun morning of sorting the coins several different times. 

After Buddy said he was done sorting the money, I grabbed his hundreds chart and explained that there are 100 pennies in a dollar.  We found a paper dollar and put that at the top of the chart.  After I showed Buddy how, he would place a penny on each number as he counted.  He made it all the way to 100 even though the pennies were sliding all over the place.

If you are interested in play money sets, there are several options.  I have the Eureka Tub of Money and I liked how easy it is to store. 

Melissa and Doug Play Money set looks like a cash register drawer which could also be used for imaginative play. 

\

The Learning Journey Kids Bank Play Money Set is another option. 

Enjoy teaching your children not only how to count and recognize money, but I encourage you to take it even one step further and teach them how to be good stewards of the money God has given them!