Teaching the Money UnitTeaching the Money UnitThere are many ways you can teach your students about the monetary system. The following activities are only a few that could be used with the Money Unit Theme. They are fun and exciting ways to help students distinguish between and understand the value of each monetary unit.
The Coin RapThis is just a fun and easy way for student to remember the value of each of the major coins. (Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters) Teach your students this rap and have them memorize it. It will make learning the coin value as easy as singing.
Coin ValueTeach your students the Coin Rap to help them remember the values of each coin and then go on to Coin Combos. This worksheet is good practice for working with coin values. They can work in groups or separately. This worksheet is set up so the students will need to find three different combinations of coins to total a certain value.
Making A BankWhen teaching your students about money, teach them how to save it. As a fun hands on activity, teach your students how to make a bank. They can keep the banks in the classroom and each day bring some spare change from home in. You can also have money prizes when students get a good grade on a test or their homework. At the end of each day the students can count their change to see how much money they have saved and record it in the *weekly log. Then at the end of the week they can record the total and see how much their change has grown over the week.
Saving Your MoneyA great idea for your money unit is to visit your local bank or credit union. Ask them to let your students learn about savings accounts and how their money will grow. Then ask them to allow the students to open their own savings accounts. They can deposit the money that they save in their banks each week. The student should also learn how to keep a bank book (record) so they can watch their money grow.
Use this letter to send home to parents to inform them of the field trip and how the students have the option of starting a savings account. It also gives a second sheet that the students and their parents must fill out in order to establish an account.
Then at the end of the year send this letter home to thank the parents for their support and to inform them of how much money the students ended up saving.
Games For Teaching The Money UnitOther Links to Resources* These links are pdf documents that you can print out.
Latest update to this document: April 16, 2001
B.L. Sarvello: Bsarvell@nmu.edu.