Making ‘cents’ out of Money

My youngest (8-years-old) is studying money at the moment.

In Maths the child must learn the new concept, and then practice the new skills often enough to succeed all the way through the exercises to gain mastery and build confidence.

Most textbooks and workbook lessons and exercises aim at the average child.

Some children need more practice.

Some need less.

I use supplementary activities to build up mastery.  Children need to repeat the mechanics until they completely understand the concept and can manage some variations of those skills.  (Remember that young children should work with manipulatives to fully understand mental, abstract concepts.)

I love my children to work through their Maths, succeed and say, “I get it!”

Sometimes there is a quicker way and I suggest,  “I wonder if you can find the easy, quicker way?” Often this prods my child to work through the problem more intuitively.  This can lead to discovery.  If the answers are incorrect, then it is back to the solid approach.  But most times, when the child has understood the principle, they discover that maths can be mental and intuitive.

I made these money worksheets to add to our Singapore Maths 2B books.  I also needed to convert dollars and American coinage to South African rands and cents.

So what supplementary Money activities do I use?

• Work with manipulatives – real coins and notes.
• Practice bonds of ten – drill work will speed up all money additions and subtraction.
• Do skip counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s – jump, skip, clap, hop while counting.
• Play shop with magazine and advertisement pictures and play money.
• Count and stack coins and swap money – from smallest coins to build up to notes or down.

What have I included in these 4 Maths practice pages?

1. Adding cents to make a rand with 10 cents.
2. Add cents and rands to make the next full rand.
3. Subtract 10 cents increments off full rands.

For other South African homeschoolers – here is your free 4-page download ~ SA Money Changing Rands

Enjoy!

Blessings,

This post is part of the South African Carnival of Homeschool Blogs.  To join the carnival or visit past carnivals visit the SACHS Blogs page.  We hope you enjoy browsing!