As a follow up to part 3, today we will finish up with the book, Penny, by Jeffrey Patnaude, and play the Moms Inspire Learning Coin Trading Game!
In addition to the book, you will need about 20 pennies, 30 nickels, 20 dimes, 2 dice, 2 copies of the printable 5 pointed star from part 3 and the blank hundreds chart from this previous post.
Okay, let's get started then. First, you'll play the game with just the pennies and nickels. Don't worry about the book yet. You can reread the first half of the book if you like, or just ask your child how many pennies make a nickel. Tell her or him that today, you'll be trading pennies for nickels. Whoever has the most nickels wins.
Here's how you'll play the game:
- Each player gets a star and a die. The pennies and nickels can be placed into separate piles for now.
- Explain to your child that the object of the game is to change as many pennies to nickels as possible. Whoever gets the most nickels wins. You may want to say that whoever has 5 or 10 nickels first wins.
- Player 1 rolls the die, and places a penny (from a shared pile) at each corner of a star equal to the number of dots on the die. When each point has a penny, the player can trade for a nickel. If a 6 is rolled, just trade 5 for a nickel and then place one more on the star for the next turn. Note: the only coins that need to be kept in a separate pile for each player are the nickels that she or he traded for.
- Players take turns rolling a die and trading pennies for nickels until someone has the number of nickels specified. At that point, each player should add up the number of cents by skip counting.
- If you play more than one round (25 cents per round for 4 rounds), you can keep score of the total cents earned in each round.
When you finish playing, you can ask your child how to make ten cents. Let him or her tell you different combinations with pennies and nickels, and see if the dime is mentioned. If not, ask if there is another coin that can be traded for 10 cents.
You can then reread the book up to the point when the traveler walks away with her nickel, and then continue on, using two stars to act it out, instead of just one. When there is a penny on each point of the stars, ask what they could be traded for. If your child says 2 nickels, ask how many cents. Then ask if there's a coin the two nickels could be traded for.
Before you show the dime, say that 10 is a very special number. After all, you do have 10 fingers and 10 toes! But it's special for another reason. Even though it's worth more cents than the penny or the nickel, it's smaller. Ask if your child would like to see it, and show it.
Before you play the coin trading game with dimes, you might want to let your child practice converting pennies to dimes, and skip counting from 10 to 100, on a blank hundreds chart. See this previous post for more details.
Once your child can identify the dime, and seems to understand that it's worth 10 cents, you can expand the coin trading game to include dimes. All you have to do is to give each player 2 stars instead of just 1, and the focus can be on getting the most dimes instead of nickels. It would probably be best if you didn't play with nickels at first.
You can always add nickels back later, and change the rules. For example, players could choose to convert pennies to nickels instead of waiting for dimes every time. Or, you could even give players bonus nickels for rolling a 5. Use your imagination! Your child may even come up with some variations of the game.
If your child does not seem to understand dimes, don't worry. Every child goes at her or his own pace. Your child might want to work with pennies and dots before you mention dimes again. That's okay!
If, on the other hand, your child fully understands pennies, nickels, and dimes, you can introduce quarters. You can even play the game, using nickels and quarters only.
Please remember that every child is different. Some children learn through hands-on activities, some through listening and seeing a picture book, and others may learn through art related activities. You just have to try different things until you find what works best for your child.
The more enthusiastic you are about these activities, the more excited and motivated your child will be. Have fun with it! Let me know how it goes, or if you have any other suggestions.
You can find part 5 here.