Coin Games

4/18/2013

 
We have been using several games to practice recognizing coins and practice finding the value of a group of coins.  A number of the children have asked me to share the games with you, so you can play together at home.
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One of my favorite games is called "Show Me the Money."

Players take turns rolling two dice and showing that amount with coins.  We use a one hundred chart as a game board, but you could play without one.

The player who rolls decides which cube will represent the tens place and which will be the ones.  You can see we have one home-made number cube to provide larger numbers.  

This example shows 37 cents.  If both players agree that the coins and the dice match, they clear the board and it is the other partner's turn.  Both players win. 

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Another game is called "A Dollar Wins."  The goal of this game is to accumulate one dollar's worth of coins.

The first player rolls two dice, adds them, and puts this amount in coins on the board.  The example on the right shows six cents.

Then it becomes the second player's turn.

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The second player rolls the dice, adds to find the total, and adds this amount to the board.  Players must swap lower value coins that can be combined to trade for a higher value coin whenever possible.

In this example, player two rolled an 8 and added a nickel and three pennies to the board.  The two nickels were then traded for a dime.  The current total is now 14 cents.  Players continue taking turns increasing the total until they reach $1.00.  Both players win.

I hope you will enjoy playing one or both of these games at home.  Not only do they provide great practice for mastering coin recognition and finding the value of a collection of coins, but they also reinforce place value and addition strategies.  

Do you remember learning how to count the value of coins as a child?  


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