Lesson Plans

Students will work in groups to examine a jar of coins to make both "guesstimations" and more precise estimations

Students will solve story problems involving money. They will use higher level critical thinking skills to develop their own strategies for solving the problems.

Students will create different coin combinations for a single amount.

Students will apply their knowledge of adding coins to a real life situation when they create different coin combinations to buy their daily snack.

Students will make predictions about the probability of a spun nickel landing on either heads or tails. Students will then test their predictions through experimentation.

Students will play a game to help them develop an appreciation for statistical methods as a powerful means for decision making.

Students will apply mathematics strategies of counting, adding, and subtracting decimal amounts to create change for a dollar.

Using Amy Axelrod's Pigs Will Be Pigs: Fun with Math and Money as a reference, students calculate how much money the pigs in the book find and spend. Then they determine how else to spend the money at a restaurant and create posters showing their menu orders.

Teams of students research commemorative coin honorees and share the reasons for the recognition with the class. Then the teams select individuals they believe deserve to be on a coin, write short essays explaining their selection, and illustrate coin designs.

After learning how many coins a new press can strike in a minute, students calculate the number of new coins that can be made in a single day. Students then share their problem-solving strategies with the class, using them to make additional calculations.