FREE & Fun Teaching Money Games and Strategies

I absolutely LOVE teaching my 2nd graders about money! They are always really engaged, because there is a clear real life connection to why they are learning about it. I love that there are so many concrete application activities that we can do to help them learn the concepts.

Teaching Money Games

I think that an important aspect to students mastery of recognizing and counting money is that they need practice it over and over again. The more familiar students get with what the coins look like and are able to differentiate between them, the more comfortable they will be with counting them.

In order to make that fun I love to use games for them to practice! I have a Math with A Friend station that students play a math game everyday. Once we learn about coins, I keep these in a constant rotation to keep reinforcing this skill! I teach students how to play this game during my Math With The Teacher station, so that they are confident in what to do when they play it themselves!

1. The game pictured above is Counting Coins Jenga! The students pick a card and count up the total of coins pictured on the card. Then they get to take a block off of the Jenga stack of the corresponding color. I use these colorful stacking blocks for this game.

2. The game pictured above you can download for FREE by clicking the picture or the button! Students practice matching the coin value that they spin with the picture representation of the coin. The first student to get 4 counters in a row, wins!

3. The coins and dollars math game pictured above is FREE in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Students roll the die and need to recognize the money value of the coin shown with that dice configuration. Each game board gives students a goal amount to race to and the first one totaling that amount wins.

Progression of Teaching Kids About Money

These strategies are intended to teach money to grades 1 and 2 because they are the beginning stages of understanding and differentiating between the coins. I love using hands on and visual approaches to teaching math concepts.

• show student physical coins
  • notice the details of the fronts and backs
  • talk about the sizes and colors
  • learn the names and values
  • begin adding and counting up groups of coins
  • practice different combinations to total same cent amount
• introduce pictures of coins
  • encourage students to match coin with picture
  • differentiate between coins pictures from distinctive markings and size
  • identify name and values from pictures
  • add and count groups of coins
  • practice different combinations to total same cent amount
  • I post these coin posters in my classroom so that students can reference a large picture of the coin as they learn the distinctions between them!
• use letters to represent coins
  • have students draw letters to represent real coins they have or a picture of coins
  • practice adding up totals from letter representations
  • draw out multiple combinations to total same cent amount
• introduce word problems
  • match physical coins to numbers the problem is stating
  • draw the letter representation to demonstrate what the problem is asking and solve

Teaching Kids About Money

Some other activities that I like to do with my students when we are learning about money are relating the skills to buying objects. For example:

• make a menu- ask students to give you the amount that the item they want costs
• give each student a different amount of money, show an object and tell how much it costs- ask if they have enough for it or not
• act out buying objects and students adding up the total money they need to give or finding the amount of change they should get

There are so many fun ways to teach and practice money with your students! I would love to hear your ideas of what you are doing in your classroom!

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