Investigations

How Much?

Find out which coin your child prefers to total first. This may tell you the number by which he or she is most comfortable skip counting (5’s, 10’s or 25’s).

Materials:

  • a group of coins (nickels, dimes, quarters)

Instructions:

  1. Place a variety of coins (nickels, dimes, quarters) in a mixed-up pile.
  2. Ask your child to sort them into groups by coin.
  3. Ask your child to tell you the total amount for each coin. (For example, there might be 85 cents in nickels, 50 cents in dimes and 75 cents in quarters).
  4. Observe your child as he or she begins totalling the coins. Ask your child how he or she chose which coin to total first.

Suggest that you both race to total the coins that your child is less comfortable with. For example, if your child is comfortable counting nickels and dimes, race to count quarters instead.

Modifications:

To make the game easier you could just use nickels and dimes.
As an extra challenge, you could ask your child to find the total of all the coins.

How Many?

Materials:

  • a variety of coins (nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, toonies)

Instructions:

One person is the banker and the other is the accountant. You can alternate roles with your child in the game. Use amounts of money that can be shown by using coins only – for example, $1.75.
Banker: “I have $1.75 in my bank. What combination of coins might I have?” The accountant shows one or more possible combinations.

Banker: “I have $1.75 in my bank. What is the smallest number of coins I could have to make this amount?” The accountant uses the fewest coins possible to
show the amount.

Banker: “I have $1.75 in my bank. I have ten coins. What coins could they be?” The accountant uses ten coins to show the amount.

Modifications:

You can make the Money Game easier or harder by varying the amount (e.g., less than $1), number of coins you are playing with or by restricting the types of coins (e.g., just dimes and nickels).