Here is the link: Money Unit. This should take you to a collection of the unit in Google Docs. I believe you can download the documents into word and make any changes to them you would like.
Here is an overview of the unit:
- Identification Pre-Assessment. A checklist to use to see which children in your class can identify the amount and value of each coin. I am so glad I did this step (well, asked a parent helper to do this step) because I immediately found out that much of the initial material for the unit could be turned into a quick review, rather than the several days I had planned. As the identification is a major part of our standard I was able to repeat this step with the children who could not identify coins in the pre-assesment as quick checks throughout the unit.
- "That's a lot of Change" coin counting song. I made up a short song for the coins. It is attached as a big book that I used daily to review the coins with my students and as a individual counting book that my students filled in and kept in their desk folders in the beginning of the unit to help identify coins. I can't for the life of me remember what the tune of the song really is, but here are the words:
My brown penny is worth 1¢.
My brown penny is worth 1¢.
My brown penny is worth 1¢.
That’s not a lot of change!
My fat nickel is worth 5¢.
My fat nickel is worth 5¢.
My fat nickel is worth 5¢.
That’s not a lot of change!
My tiny dime is worth 10¢.
My tiny dime is worth 10¢.
My tiny dime is worth 10¢.
That’s not a lot of change!
My big quarter is worth 25¢.
My big quarter is worth 25¢.
My big quarter is worth 25¢.
That’s not a lot of change!
In my pocket I have one penny.
In my pocket I have one nickel.
In my pocket I have one dime.
In my pocket I have one quarter.
That’s A LOT of change!
Note: After the first day, we changed the last part of the song to "In my pocket I have 41 cents". This is because on the first day I gave the children a challenge to figure out how much change they would have if they had one of each coin. I let them work together and observed them. This was a great way to see which of my students were familiar with counting money and what kind of strategies they used.
Coin Bingo- My students love Bingo, or in this game "MONEY", and it is a great way to practice identification.
A Dollar for Penny- This is an easy read book that is about a little girl who has a lemonade stand. Each customer gives her a different coin and eventually she has one dollar. We read the book and put up the coins and counted how much money she was collecting as she read.
Race to 100 (or Race to 1$)-We played this simple game on hundreds day....how perfect could this unit have aligned? To play the game each child was given a sorting mat (a column for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters) and play money (6 pennies, 3 nickels, 3 dimes, and 5 quarters) and a die (dice?). As they rolled the die they put that amount of pennies onto their board. The trick to the game was that there was not very many pennies so they were forced to trade up as they got closer to a dollar. This was tricky for some of the students, but the more they played the easier the conversions were for them to make. The children played in partners and the first one to get to 100 cents won the game (but we encouraged them to keep playing).
Count by fives dance- I modified this idea from a TFA corps member on our resource site. It is a fun way to practice counting by fives. It was used as preparation for counting coins in the second week of our unit. As we counted by fives we would do motions similar to those in the Macarena. Instead of swirling our hips we put our hand on our knees, feet, knees again, crouched down on 95 and jumped up and shouted 100.
Caps for Sale math- We read the classic story Caps for Sale. After we read the book we drew pictures to figure out how much the peddler would have earned if he sold all of his caps (remember, "Caps for sale! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!"
I also gave the children a worksheet with word problems to see how much money he would earn if they caps cost different amounts or if he sold different amounts of caps. This worksheet is linked to in the money unit link above. They did this in partners because I had not yet taught them formally how to count change. We had practiced some strategies, but there had not been a formal lesson. It was amazing to hear the strategies the children used...especially after we had played the race to 100 game. You will also notice on this page, and many other pages from the unit I have listed challenge problems. The way I set up challenge problems is that the children must show me that they have all of the correct answers on the original side of the paper (we give immediate feedback in math b/c it is done in half group so I only have ten students to check). Once they have gotten all of the problems right on the first side they can work on the challenge problems. This is a huge motivator. Sometimes I will give them a piece of candy or a sticker for getting all of the challenge problems right, but the word "challenge" is usually motivation enough for them. If they do not finish they can keep it to work on when they finish other activities, during center time, or as morning work the next day (or they do not have to finish them at all). I also let them take the papers home and work with their families on it. If they bring it back the next day and there was a treat attached, they can get it the next morning.
Alright...there is week one of our money unit...it is past my bed time, but the rest of the unit is coming soon!
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