Trista Roussin

Instructing Dynamics II

Topic: Money

 

How can money be used to help teach fractions, decimals, and percents, and ratios: Money can be used to teach math in an agglomeration of ways. We know that one quarter is ¼ of a dollar, a time is 1/10, a nickel is 1/20, and a penny is 1/100. This information can be used as a fraction (as shown) or a decimal (quarter= .25, dime= .1, nickel= .05, and a penny= .01). By turning the fractions into decimals they can then be turned more easily into percents by multiplying by 100 (.25= 25%, .1= 10%, and so on). These can also be turned into ratios, if you are referring to nickels and pennies a ratio could look like this: for every 5 pennies there is one nickel so the ratio is 5:1, or 5/1, or, 5 to 1.

 

What are some activities that can be used:

Strategies for Teaching Money

Coin antennas:   Students draw antennas on coin pictures to represent the value.   Each antenna is worth 5 cents.   This means a dime has two antennas, a nickel has one antenna, a penny has no antennas, etc.   This strategy capitalizes on students' strength in counting by fives.   They simply point to each antenna as they count by 5s, then count on by ones to include any pennies.   This method is also efficient because students do not need to sort and rearrange coins; they simply draw antennas on coins in the order given.   This method is especially effective for K-2 regular and special ed. students who will eventually outgrow the need for antennas.   NOTE: some teachers call the antennas "hairs" and talk about the penny as "bald" because it has no hair.   Whatever works for you and your students is the best strategy.

 

Another activity that would be helpful for student is the counting money activity. This activity is aimed for mostly kids in the second grade. You need 8 plastic cups, a sharpie, and plastic or real coins. On each cup write a different money amount that is less than or equal to a dollar, then have each child figure out how many of each coins are needed to find the amount written on the cup. This helps children learn the value of money with the dollar being a whole. Also, money is almost always shown as a decimal so this activity would help students learn how decimals work, and how anything behind the decimal point is less than one.

In another activity for fifth or sixth graders, you could give them a worksheet with items and the prices of the items and then tell them that there is a certain percent tax on those items and have them figure out how much money the tax is and how much extra they would owe after tax. This would help them familiarize with percents and how they connect to the real world. This would also help them with decimals, because as I said before, money is shown in decimals.

An activity that could be used to help with fractions is, you could put an assortment of coins in front of them, let’s say you put 3 nickels, 2 pennies, and 5 quarters, you could ask how many pennies, nickels, and quarters out of ten are there? The answer would like this: Pennies= 2/10, Nickels= 3/10, and Quarters= 5/10. Once they start to get good at identifying the fractions you could make it harder by making the denominator a larger number, such as 20, 30, 50, etc.  This activity would be for first and second graders.

 

References

·         Holt, M. (2012). Education.com. Retrieved from http://www.education.com

·         Kawas, T. (2006). Math wire. Retrieved from http://mathwire.com/money/money.htm

·         Presidents on coins. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.marshu.com/articles/presidents-on-us-united-states-coins.php

·         Elembis. (2007). Assorted coins. [0]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Assorted_United_States_coins.jpg