Financial Literacy: Coins and Bills to $100
Grade 3 financial literacy reaches $100 and introduces bills alongside coins. The concept of flexible payment methods (cash, credit, electronic) reflects the modern reality that money is increasingly abstract: a credit card payment moves no physical objects. Earning money to reach a financial goal introduces the mathematics of saving over time, which involves addition, multiplication, and the concept of a target value. First Peoples trade games reinforce the idea that value is socially negotiated.
Coins and bills to $100
The 10, 50 bills extend the financial system students know. Counting a mixed combination: 1 twenty-dollar bill, 2 five-dollar bills, 3 quarters, 1 dime, 2 nickels = 20 + 10 + 0.75 + 0.10 + 0.10 = $30.95. The strategy remains the same: sort by denomination from largest to smallest, count each group, add the subtotals.
Flexible payment methods
Cash is physical: coins and bills change hands. A cheque is a written instruction to a bank. A credit card borrows money to be repaid later. An e-transfer moves numbers between accounts electronically. No physical money moves in most modern transactions. The underlying mathematics (adding, subtracting, owing) is the same, but the mechanism differs. Understanding this abstraction is financial literacy for the modern world.
Earning and goals
If you earn 35, how many weeks? (7.) If you earn 40? (5.) This is division in a financial context. What if you also spend 3 per week, so 35/3 is about 12 weeks. This introduces the idea of net income and connects financial mathematics to multi-step problem solving.