Goal: Roll to the highest total
Grades: K, 1, 2, 3, 4 Group size: 2–4 Time: 10 minutes or less
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Materials: 5–7 coins per group. Use U.S. coins or coins from another country. Prerequisites: None |
Check that everyone knows how much each type of coin is worth. If you are using coins from outside US, invite children to share what they know about the country.
2. Take turns rolling coins
On your turn:
Gently toss the coins.
Find the total of the coins that land heads up. Don't count the coins that land tails up. Remember your total.
3. Compare totals
Whoever has the largest total wins the round.
4. Best of five (optional)
Play a total of five rounds. Whoever wins most rounds wins the game.
Variations
Roll to 100 (Grades 3, 4)
Children keep taking turns until one person has rolled a total of at least 100 in all.
Up and Down (Grades 3, 4)
If a coin lands face down, instead of ignoring it, children subtract its value from the total. With this version, it’s possible to end up with a negative total.
Creative Coins (Grades 3, 4)
Children invent a coin system. An eraser might be worth 1 cent, a pebble 3 cents, and a shell 7 cents. For each type of coin, they decide what counts as “heads” and what counts as “tails.”
Books and Other Resources
Coming Soon!
Coin recognition
In this activity, children work on several practical skills:
learning to tell different coins apart, distinguishing “heads” from “tails,” determining
coin values, and adding and comparing amounts of money.
Children sometimes assume that the larger the coin, the more it’s worth—as
is the case in some currency systems. As needed, remind children working
with coins that dimes are worth more than pennies and nickels, even though
they’re smaller.
ConnectionsCoins and countries
Most countries have their own currency systems. Some countries, such as Brazil, use coin denominations similar to the US. Others use some different coin denominations. For instance, Mexico uses coins worth 10, 20, and 50 centavos, and South Korea uses coins worth 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 hwan.
Many people in the US are used to working with 5’s, 10’s, and 25’s because of our coin system. People from other countries may be more familiar with 20’s, 50’s, 2’s, or whatever coin values they use and combine frequently.
For more information about different coin systems, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Circulating_currencies
©2008 TERC, Cambridge, MA. All rights reserved.
