LESSON PLAN

Financial Literacy — Coin Values and Exchanges

Apothem Team

Grade 1 · Number

LESSON AT A GLANCE

Warm-up

5 min

Explore

15 min

Consolidate

10 min

Practice

12 min

Exit ticket

3 min

Warm-up

I will show you some nickels. Count their total value. Show 2 nickels (10 cents), 4 nickels (20 cents), 7 nickels (35 cents). What are you doing in your head? (Skip-counting by 5s.) Now dimes. Connect explicitly: counting coins uses skip-counting you already know.

Explore

Classroom store with items priced in whole numbers of cents (5, 10, 25, 50 cents, 1 dollar). Students shop with a set of coins, select items, and count coins to pay. Then role-play a trade game using shells and beads with assigned values. Students negotiate trades and reason about equivalent value.

Consolidate

Practice

Students complete a coin-counting sheet (count multiples of each denomination) and a shopping scenario (select items totalling exactly 1 dollar using different coin combinations). Exit ticket: show me 30 cents using only dimes. How many? (3.)

Exit ticket

TIP Use real coins whenever possible. The physical weight, size, and feel matter for developing authentic coin recognition. Plastic coins are fine for trading games but supplement with real coins for initial learning.

WORKED EXAMPLES

A student wants to buy a 35-cent item and has 6 nickels. Do they have enough?

6 nickels times 5 cents = 30 cents. Not quite enough. Count with the student: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. We only reached 30 cents. How much more do we need? (5 cents more, one more nickel.)

A student says the quarter is worth less than the dime because it is smaller. How do you address this?

The quarter is smaller in size but worth more in value. Let us check: how many pennies is a dime worth? (10.) How many is a quarter worth? (25.) Which is worth more? Value is not determined by size. It is an agreed-upon convention.

MATERIALS

•Canadian coin sets (real or plastic)

•Classroom store with price tags

•Trade game materials (shells, beads, cards)

•Coin value reference chart

•Skip-counting strips connecting coins to multiples

WATCH FOR

!Larger coin = more valuable is very persistent. Directly address the dime-nickel comparison (dime is smaller but worth more) repeatedly and in multiple contexts.

!Students may add coin values by counting all cents from 1 rather than using skip-counting. Model the efficient approach but accept counting too: both demonstrate understanding.