Counting Coins Money Activities

Counting coins is in the second grade Common Core math standards, but it’s so important to begin to work with coin values and counting coin combinations early.  The ability to switch values while skip counting can be tricky, especially if students aren’t being very attentive.   Giving students continued practice, and working with coins in many different ways really helps build students’ coin counting skills. Here are some of my favorite resources to use to practice counting coin values.

Counting Coins in Calendar

When I taught first grade, I introduced coin values at each numbered day of school (day 1, day 5, day 10, and day 25) and we worked on skip counting every single day during our calendar time.  I introduced the coins and their values using the common, well known songs and used posters that are in my classroom decor sets. This daily repeated exposure proved to be so beneficial as my students learned the coin values through this routine without any outside practice. They also became pretty fluent with skip counting coin values since we did it every single day. Whether you teach first or second grade, this daily routine will help your students master counting coins! You can see more about my calendar routine in my detailed blog post.

Skip Counting Coin Values

Practicing skip counting coin values (without the coin images) is incredibly beneficial. Just as we practice during calendar, I like to also practice skip counting through games! I love to use my 5 in a Row games- especially my Mental Math Addition to 100 game. Students don’t know they are skip counting coin values and they’re just focused on counting the numbers on the screen. It also helps to build students’ number sense as they see how tens and ones connect with two-digit numbers. One of the things I love most about my 5 in a Row game is that I can customize the speed of the game. When I first introduce it, I add a couple seconds to each slide. I gradually speed up the game as students become more fluent with skip counting the numbers.

I also have a Counting Coins 5 in a Row game! It practices recognizing coin faces and counting a collection. I have it broken down into 3 different versions: pennies and dimes; pennies, nickels and dimes; and pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Each of the coins is given with both heads and tails images and a variety of quarter options are included. It’s important that students recognize coins and their values before playing since there’s a fluency component involved. But once students know the coins, and have practice skip counting, this is a great game to put it all together!

Counting Coins Worksheets

I also created these Coin Counting Worksheets several years ago.  I created them with Valentine’s Day in mind, but they are versatile enough that they can be used for really any time of the year.  There are 3 different levels of worksheets with 10 pages at each level, making them perfect for leveled differentiation in the classroom.  Or, they can be used throughout the year as you continue to build on rigor.

The first version has students finding the value of a collection of coins by identifying the coins needed to purchase items.

The second version has students doing the same skill as the first one, but they’re written in story problem format.  The simple and straightforward word problems give students much needed problem solving practice, and also working on the same skill at a slightly more difficult level.

The third version takes money a step further by working with story problems where students have to identify the change given in return.  The focus of these word problems remains on coins and values under $1.00 but there are still several scenarios with students working with amounts within $3.00.  This builds the needed skills to continue to work with larger amounts of money and continued real-life experiences.

There are 30 pages in all (10 pages at each of the 3 levels).  The coin values stay consistent at each level so you’re able to give the 3 levels of worksheets out to truly differentiate (i.e. page 1 works with the same values of items on all 3 levels).  You can purchase this Counting Coins worksheet set from my TpT store.

You can download 5 level one pages for free by clicking the image below.

Do you have any tried and true ideas or resources for working on coin values and adding a collection of coins?