Friday 20 April 2012

Money, money, money!

We are gearing up to study money with my Year 2 class so I am looking for interesting ways to get the kids plenty of practise with making different amounts.
According to the new Mathematics curriculum, they need to be able to count and order small collections of Australian notes and coins. I want them to have lots of hands-on practice with coins and notes.
While waiting for my dear husband to pick me up from work this afternoon, I had a brainwave so I came home and made these tags for my game idea.
I have called it The Shopkeepers Game. It is free from my TPT store.
Basically, the class is divided into two groups - shopkeepers and customers. It is a concentric circle game with the shopkeepers sitting on chairs in the centre and the customers moving to music around the outside, carrying their little purses of money.
When the music stops, the customers buy whatever is being sold by the nearest shopkeeper. (Is this just encouraging impulse buying???)
The shopkeeper needs to check that the amount is correct.
There are different coloured tags so that the game can be made easier or harder or to limit the game to coins only, or include notes and mixed denominations. The game could be made even more challenging by giving change.
I have made the game so that it could be used by anyone in a country that uses dollars and cents and there is nothing specifically Australian about the tags. They could just as easily be used in America or New Zealand.
I also think I might be able to use them for other games or assessments like matching to the amounts, and ordering the amounts. Since we are doing two digit addition as well, I might be able to use them for this too.
I am trying to make resources that I can use for multiple purposes to save time, money and resources. If you think of another use for these tags, I would be happy to hear about it.
I hope my kids enjoy this game. I'm sure they will - they love any chance to get out of their seats and make a bit of noise...
If you play it with your students, let me know how it goes! I'd love to hear about it.

3 comments:

  1. I will use this! Thank you from Barbados. I will also use it for <, = and >.

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