Counting Coins Game – Adding Money

Item description

Learning to count coins and money is so much more fun when you get to go shopping! With this math activity, students start with a certain amount to spend and can buy anything they want as long as they don’t go over their budget.

To play, students choose items from the store and record the prices on their shopping list. When they are finished shopping, they add up all their purchases and and answer the question – Do you have enough? You can also add play money and have students physically count out the coins to pay for their items. This activity can be completed by a single student or turned into a game with several students competing to see who ends up with the most money left over.

This money game is one of my students’ favorite activities. It’s very simple with no prep. There are several versions of the game boards, plus an editable version, so you can fully customize and differentiate this activity!

WHAT YOU WILL GET

• Instructions

• Game boards for shopping at 5 different stores (toys, clothes, food, pets, home)

• Shopping lists

• Editable game boards in Powerpoint

DIFFERENTIATION

The game boards, or “shops”, are provided in the following versions:

• Prices in any amount including pennies (students will have to count mixed coins of all types)

• Prices that end in 5 or 0 only

• Prices that end in 0 only

The editable Powerpoint allows you to create any prices you want for further customization. You could make whole dollar amounts or only prices of less than $1.

WHO IS THIS GAME FOR?

The various levels of this game allow you to use it with students of all abilities!

• Young students learning to count groups of like coins

• Students learning to count mixed coins

• Students learning to add money amounts and decimals

• Older students learning the life skills of budgeting, shopping, and spending

Using games in the classroom is a highly effective way to build math fluency no matter what level you teach.