Happy March, friends! Holidays are a great way to bring some fun into the classroom, even a virtual one. This week we are welcoming spring by exploring interactive ways to teach students about money with a St. Patrick’s Day theme. Young students must acquire simple number sense skills first. So, let’s start with some simple activities for these students.
Count the Gold for Number Sense Learning
Before proceeding to learning about money, young students need to learn number sense. Simply, students have acquired number sense skills when they are able to identify, understand, and use numbers. Number sense develops over time and must be supported. Engaging activities that involve these skills will also help kindergarteners succeed in later grades.
Here is one simple activity to get you started. Teachers, make simple money pots out of construction paper. Make or purchase “gold” coins for students to use to fill their pot. Each pot should be numbered. Students place the correct number of gold coins “in” their pot. This is a great activity for students to do in pairs. It’s simple to create and play! Teaching virtually? Keep reading for a similar digital resource.
St. Patrick’s Countathon
One fun way to include counting in your classroom is to have a St. Patrick’s countathon. Each day of St. Patrick’s Day week, place shamrocks around the classroom and ask your students to count the shamrocks they see throughout the day. At the end of the day, see how many students found all of the shamrocks. This is a simple game for young students.
Similarly, a more challenging form of the game is to create gold coins out of construction paper and write a coin value on each one. Place these coins around the classroom and have the students find and count up the value of all the coins that they found. Have students use small notebooks or paper to make note of and to add up their coins. See how many students find all the coins and counted correctly.
Marching to Math Centers
March is here so let’s spruce up our math centers and get students “march”ing to them! 😉
Use fun items in the math center for students to use for counting and learning about money. Create a simple game by having students roll a dice and recording each number for a certain number of rolls. Have them add these numbers up and record the total. Create a St. Patrick’s themed sheet for recording with a pot-of-gold money goal for them to reach. Have them try to reach the amount that is in their pot of gold!
Create copies of St. Patrick’s Day pots of gold, without the gold. Each pot should be labeled with an amount of money for students to fill with their paper coins. Have students paste their coins onto their pot. These may be simple money-counting activities, but they support more complex number sense skills.
Math Resources to “Count” On
I always like to include helpful digital resources for your students that are relevant to the blog topic. Today, is no exception! 😀 I’ve created these simple, fun digital resources that will support your students while they increase their money counting skills.
This first resource is great for kindergarten students to help them with their counting. Students digitally place gold coins in their pot. It is holiday themed and can be used every year with new students. Click here to see all the details on this resource.
The second digital resource I created this year for St. Patrick’s Day is for slightly older students, first and second graders. Students have fun learning to identify and count money by moving the coins into their piggy bank. Click here to check this resource out.
Whether you are still teaching virtually or back in your classroom, it is always fun to bring a holiday theme into our resources. To help get you started, I am offering my readers a 1/2 price sale, today only, on these new resources.
Click the button below to check out these resources at a great price!
Talk to you next week!
Jess @ Savvy Apple
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