If you're like me, you may have a jar, cup, or bag that collects your loose change. While you continue to collect coins, let's put them to good use. Below are 12 ways you can use your coin collection to create fun challenges for your child.
Coin Sorting:
Start with a large bowl of all your coins mixed together. Separate these coins into piles of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
Sensory Bin:
For added fun, hide your coins in a sensory bin. This could be a bowl full of dry rice, sand, beans, or anything else you have available. Dig through the sensory bin to find the coins. As you find them, organize them by making separate piles of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
Coin Toss:
Use colored tape to create a rectangle on your floor. Sit a few feet back from that area with a bowl full of coins. Your challenge is to toss the coins one at a time, aiming for your boxed area. If one goes in, you scored! Try keeping track of how many you have scored and compete with a parent or sibling.
Coin Measurement:
Use your coins as a nonstandard unit of measurement. Explore your home and discover how many coins long your pencil, your shoe, or your book is. If you measure the same item with different coins, like in the pictures below, discuss why it takes more pennies to measure the pencil than it does with quarters.
Drops on a Coin:
Estimate how many drops of water will fit on a penny (or nickel, or dime, or quarter). Using a pipette, test this prediction. For the proper use of a pipette, try using the instructions"dip, squeeze, lift, release." Surface adhesion and water cohesion are showcased in this very simple, yet engaging experiment. You'll need gentle fingers and some patience for this activity.
Coin Impressions:
Lay out a few coins of your choice on a workspace. Then, place a plain piece of white paper over top of them. Use a colored pencil or a regular pencil to rub on the paper to reveal a coin impression.
Comparisons:
Compare the coins and discuss their size, shape, color, and metal.
Patterns:
Create a pattern using coins! Get creative. The patterns could be by color (for example: silver, bronze, silver bronze), by type (quarter, penny, penny, quarter, penny, penny), or you could create a pattern using heads and tails.
Money Talk:
Discuss the amount of money each coin is worth.
Coin Tracing:
Trace each coin and practice writing numbers within the circle. The numbers in each circle could represent the value of each coin or you could count how many you have and number them in numerical order.
How Many?:
Lay out all of the pennies (then nickels, dimes, and quarters) in a straight line to count them. Practice one-to-one correspondence by pointing to each coin and counting out loud.
Least and Most:
After counting how many pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters you have, compare how many of each coin you have. Work together to create a bar graph to represent which had the least and most.
Coin Towers:
Stack your coins into tall towers. Use this opportunity to discuss height and balance. For an expansion of this activity, roll a dice or draw a card to decide how tall your tower should be.
If you try any of these coin activities, be sure to tag me @msewarner on Instagram and Twitter so I can see all the fun you're having!
Cheers to all that Cha-Ching,
Ms. E Warner
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