Counting Coins - Lesson 5, Counting the Change Game {Pennies and Nickles}

This game can be played with any coins, but we're limiting it to only pennies and nickels, since that's what we've learned so far.  Fun, versatile, and the child won't know she's learning!  It provides great, hands-on practice at counting out change.

Lesson:  Counting the Change Game, Pennies and Nickels

Objective:  Child will use pennies and nickels to create specific change, up to 10 cents.

Materials:  Coin manipulatives or real coins.  Dice.  Construction paper.  Crayons / writing utensils.

Process:
1.  Review the pocket chart showing coin values you have been building in the last few lessons.  Review that a penny is one cent, a nickel is five cents, and five pennies equal one nickel.

2.  On a sheet of construction paper, create a table with three columns.  Label the first column, 'Penny', the second column, 'Nickel', and leave the third column blank.  I found a cool idea on Pintrest to place a die in a small, lidded, Tupperware-style container (I used a mason jar, because that's what I had handy).  This way you don't have dice flying across the room every time you toss them.  Pretty cool, huh?

2.  Toss the die.  I used a die with numbers written on it, instead of dots, to make the game simpler.  Write the number that comes up in the third column of your chart.  In this case, we got the number 10, so I wrote, '10 cents'.

3.  Instruct the child to create, '10 cents', on the chart.  She will probably use pennies first, because that is what is most concrete and familiar.  Make sure she places all the pennies in the 'Penny' column of  the chart.

4.  Draw a line underneath the pennies, and ask, "Can you think of another way to show '10 cents'?  How about using nickels?"  Write, '10 cents' again in the third column.  Guide the child in placing two nickels in the 'nickel' column.  Count to make sure that it equals 10 cents.

5.  Draw a line underneath the nickels, and ask, "Can you think of another way to show, '10 cents'?  How about using pennies and nickels?"  Guide the child in placing the nickel first in the nickel column, then counting out 5 pennies.  Note the questioning look on Sophie's face.  This will be difficult at first.  Be sure to provide lots of support.  It will get easier as the child gets more practice.

6.  Roll the die again, and repeat the process.  If you need to, add on a second (or third!) sheet of construction paper to continue your chart.  I wrote each new money value in a different color, to help distinguish visually.

Syllable Sort

I found this activity on my new favorite teacher blog, Mrs. T's First Grade Class.  She posts lots of great, and cheap, ideas, many of which can be adapted to the single-child homeschooling format.  Go check her out!  Beware, though, you may find yourself pinning every other post of hers.


It's important to do lots of practice identifying syllables, because in doing so you're helping your child hone her auditory processing skills.  Auditory processing is a key element to becoming a proficient reader.  AP practice includes things like rhyming (did you know all the Mother Goose nursery rhymes help build that section of your child's brain?!), identifying the beginning and ending sounds in words, syllables, differentiating between voiced and unvoiced consonants ('f' and 'v', 'd' and 't' - go ahead, say the sounds, your mouth makes the same shape, just one is voiced and the other isn't.  Cool, huh?)


Another plus to this activity is that the child creates a pictograph at the end.  Sophie immediately identified it as a pictograph when questioned, because we've been talking about them all week.  

Lesson:  Syllable Sort

Objective:  Child will identify syllables in words, and practice her auditory processing skills.

Materials:  Printout (found here).  Glue.  Scissors.

Process:
1.  Spend some time practicing finding the syllables in words.  As you will see from the video below, this was difficult for Sophie.  We spent a lot of time 'playing' with words.  A great way to do this with a beginner is to have them put their hand under their chin and slowly say the word.  Count the number of times your chin drops. That's how many syllables are in the word.  Also, you can 'clap' out the syllables.

2.  Instruct child to cut out the pictures in the printout.  Have her identify each one, find the number of syllables for it, and glue it in the corresponding column.

3.  The completed product.  I let Sophie identify the pictures, and didn't correct her when she 'incorrectly' identified the picture, as long as it made sense.  After all, if a wolf looks like a coyote to a desert child, who am I to argue?

Counting Coins, Lesson 2 - Graphing Coins

There's something about money.  Kids love playing with it.  So it wasn't hard to get Sophie to do this next activity.  She already knows the names of all the coins, and has done many sorting activities like the type I did with Xander in Lesson 1.  I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce the concept of graphing while we had something fun (coins) to work with.  


A note on graphing.  While I was teaching in Texas, I had an opportunity to attend a week long workshop on the AIMS method.  Let me tell you. It was the BEST, and most useful, workshop I ever attended.  I walked away from it with tons of resources (a box full of manipulatives, several books, and a zillion ideas).  AIMS stands for 'Activities for Integrating Math and Science'.  The program is built around teaching math and science holistically, integrating it into the wider classroom curriculum.  Instead of teaching a 'graph unit', as most math curricula do, AIMS encourages fitting in graphing exercises with other content, which makes the activity concrete for the child and connected to real learning.  


Note that the following activity can be done with ANYTHING:  a leaf or rock collection, heights of students in the classroom, eye color, snack preferences, types of fruit on the counter... 

Lesson:  Graphing Coins

Purpose:  Child will create a pictograph and a bar graph representing a selected number of coins.

Materials:  A pile of assorted coins (make sure you have a selection of pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters, and half dollars if you wish).  Two pieces of construction paper.  Markers or other writing implements.

Process:
1.  Give the child a pile of coins.  Across the bottom of a piece of construction paper, write, 'P, N, D, Q'.  (or write out the entire coin name.  I was lazy).  Instruct the child to sort the coins in lines corresponding with the correct label.

2.  When the child has sorted all her coins, explain that she just made a special kind of graph called a 'pictograph'.  Ask her what word she hears in 'pictograph' (picture).  Tell her we call it a 'pictograph' because it is a graph of pictures of things.  In this case, coins.  Tell her we will now make another kind of graph called a 'bar graph'.  Draw out a simple grid on the second sheet of construction paper, with the same labels at the bottom as your pictograph (make sure the grid has enough spaces for your number of coins), and set it beside the pictograph.  Ask the child, "How many quarters do you have?"

3.  Guide her in counting the number of quarters, and coloring in the corresponding number of bars on the bar graph.  Repeat the process for the dimes, nickles and pennies (and half dollars, if you're doing them.  We didn't because let's face it, who uses half dollars?  If she were in second grade or older, I'd probably use them, but I'm trying to keep it concrete to her world right now.)

4.  When child has completed the bar graph, compare the two graphs.  Point out that both graphs show the same information (number of coins), but display it in different ways (pictures vs. bars).