Sensory math! Sorting coins that are "hidden" in water beads.
Show me the
money!! I mean really, who isn't excited
about money? Kids included. It is natural for children to have a desire
to learn about money. It is a part of
our everyday lives. We should take this
opportunity to teach them about something when their interest is high. I like to introduce money around President’s
Day. We start with a discussion about
Washington and Lincoln and that leads into learning about pennies and
quarters.
Another good time to build
excitement about money is on St. Patrick’s Day when you can go on a search for
the money at the end of the rainbow.
This is when you can introduce the nickel. We start with sorting coins, nickel , quarter
and penny. I use clear water beads and hide the coins to sort in the water beads. After they have mastered that
I add in the dime. The next step after
they have mastered coin sorting is to introduce the coin values.
I do this by making it a Montessori counting
work, I use sandpaper numbers to help reinforce the value of the coins and have
objects to count to reinforce one to one correspondence.
At the end of our money unit we celebrate
with a PJ day and snack money store.
Each child brings in a snack and I pass out coins for them to count out
to buy snacks.
This was a fantastic
learning experience and super fun to top it off!! Have fun showing the kids the money!
