Counting Coins in Third Grade

Recently, third graders have been practicing counting coins and making change, very useful skills that will come in handy when we start to sell pretzels!  We began with a review of coins and some strategies for counting coins.  Students then practiced counting groups of coins and worked to make amounts in a variety of different ways.

Third graders especially enjoyed a game called Heads or Tails.  In partners, students took turns tossing ten coins onto their Heads or Tails mat.  They divided up the coins into those that landed on heads and those that landed on tails and worked together to add up the total value of the heads and the tails side to find out which side had "won" that round.

Counting coins is a great skill to continue to practice at home.  You can give your child a few coins and have them find the total.  You can also have them find change for small amounts of money (under $1, $5 or $10).


There are also some fun online games to practice calculating coins...



Coin Bingo

Counting Money- leveled options

Making Change (more challenging)