Homeschool Morning Time: Counting Money

If you’ve been following along with my Homeschool Pre-school posts, then you have probably heard me mention our Morning Time.

When my oldest kids were in preschool I created a Morning Time Printable: a schedule of sorts.

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Photo of Morning Routine Printable for Our Homeschooling

Each day began with the daily activities I listed on the printable, and then we would get started with any worksheets/experiences that had been planned for the day.

This continued to work well when the girls came along and entered the preschool years.

Psst…stick around: Later in this post, I have a link where you can grab your own copy for free!

Morning Time - Free Printable by This Little Home of Mine

Morning Time: Counting Money

In this post, I want to share a little bit about the “Add a Coin”/”Coin Recognition” part of our Morning Time!

All you need to make this happen is:

Fake coins or real coins will do, but we love to use the real thing! 

Hundreds Board with Coins on It

In the early years of our homeschooling, we took a trip to the local bank to gather several rolls of various types of coins.

Container Filled with Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, and Quarters

Situations like this give children the on opportunity to interact with real money – something that doesn’t happen very often in our mostly cashless society.

Hundreds Boards with Coins on It

Morning Time: Counting Money – How it works!

On the first day of school (You could begin on any day!), we sort our coins by type. This little green container we’ve used for sorting is an oldie but goodie from IKEA.

Next, we start counting!

We simply add 1¢ for each day of school – slowly but surely working our way to 100!

Closeup of a Kids Hundreds Board Used for Counting

Each day, we lay our coins out on the hundreds board, but when we are finished counting coins/adding coins, we store our coins in a small container until the next day when we get them back out for this activity.

Hundreds Board with Coins on It

Week #1 

  • Monday – add a penny
  • Tuesday – add a penny
  • Wednesday – add a penny
  • Thursday – add a penny
  • Friday – add a penny AND THEN show how all five pennies can be traded in for a nickel

Week #2

  • Monday – add a penny
  • Tuesday – add a penny
  • Wednesday – add a penny
  • Thursday – add a penny
  • Friday – add a penny AND THEN show how all five pennies from this week can be traded in for a nickel AND THEN show how both nickels can be traded in for a dime

Continue to do this adding and trading of coins all the way to one hundred!

Hundreds Boards with Coins on It

Your kids will especially love trading 2 dimes and a nickel in for 1 quarter! (Hey, you can even work in fifty-cent pieces if you want!)

Want to extend this daily lesson even further?

Discuss:

  • How many more days ’til 100?
  • How much more money do we need to get to $1.00?
Hundreds Board with Coins on It

These questions will begin laying the foundation for teaching your kiddos to count back change – a skill that is seemingly becoming a lost art!

The goal is to eventually have four quarters (or two fifty-cent pieces) to trade in for a one dollar bill.

When we make it to one hundred, we trade our coins in for $1, and then we head to the dollar store where each kiddo gets to spend their hard-earned money!

Mom is happy to cover the tax. 😉

As we are adding coins, we discuss the name of each coin as well as its value.

This cheesy song from a YouTube video caught on quickly in our house:

We didn’t typically sing the entire thing – just this part:

A penny is one.

A nickel is five.

A dime is ten.

A quarter’s twenty-five.

Interested in another great FREE resource?

This one from a friend of mine!

I love the way The Reading Mama has incorporated money in to her numbers charts! Her Coin Puzzles have also been a great resource for us!

Larger Play Money

In addition to working with the actual coins, I also have some larger laminated coins that I like to use.

They make it easy to talk about the faces that can be found on the U.S. coins.

This set could provide a similar experience!

Play Money Being Used for Kindergarten Math Lesson
  • Penny – Abraham Lincoln
  • Nickel – Thomas Jefferson
  • Dime – Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Quarter – George Washington

Interested in a 3-D magnetic set? There are so many fun options out there!

Pretend Money - Dollars and Cents - on Vertical Magnetic Space
Young Girl Doing Homeschooling Science Experiment
Homeschooling Kindergarten by This Little Home of Mine
Five Senses Activity Guide for Letter-a-Week by This Little Home of Mine

 

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One Comment

  1. I love this activity. We are always on the lookout for new ways to learn something we already know so that we have a true complete understanding of it. This is going to be so much fun to share with Connor.

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