Financial Literacy: Coins and Bills to $100
Warm-up
Show a combination: 1 twenty-dollar bill, 1 ten-dollar bill, 2 loonies, 3 quarters. What is the total? Students calculate. Share strategies: largest denomination first. 10 + 0.75 = $32.75.
Explore
Classroom store with prices up to $100: students shop with a mixed money set, make purchases, and figure out if they have enough. A second challenge: make the same total using three different combinations of bills and coins. Record all combinations.
Formalize
Flexible payment methods: sort a set of scenario cards into payment types (cash, cheque, credit, e-transfer). Discuss: why might someone choose each type? What are the advantages and risks of each? Credit: convenience but debt. E-transfer: fast but requires technology.
Financial Literacy: Coins and Bills to $100
Financial goal calculation: you want to buy a 6 per week doing chores. How many weeks? (6 weeks.) But you also spend 6 - 4 net per week. 4 = 9 weeks. Introduce the savings tracker: record week by week toward the goal.
Practice
Students count 4 mixed bill-and-coin combinations, find 2 equivalent combinations for 50, and solve 2 savings-goal problems. Exit ticket: you earn 2/week. How many weeks to save $24?
Exit ticket
Students count 4 mixed bill-and-coin combinations, find 2 equivalent combinations for 50, and solve 2 savings-goal problems. Exit ticket: you earn 2/week. How many weeks to save $24?
Step 1: The task: combine bills and coins to make exactly $1.00 (100 cents) five DIFFERENT ways. Available: quarters, dimes, nickels (and pennies if your class uses them).
Step 2: Work systematically, anchored on quarters: 4Q (100 ✓); 3Q + 2D + 1N (75+20+5 ✓); 2Q + 5D (50+50 ✓); 1Q + 7D + 1N (25+70+5 ✓); 10D (✓).
Step 3: Verify each combination by counting on aloud, biggest coins first: "25, 50, 75, 85, 95, 100."
Step 4: The organizing insight: anchoring on one coin type and marching it down (4 quarters, 3, 2, 1, 0) turns a scavenger hunt into a system — and systems find EVERYTHING and know when they're done.
Challenge cap: "Exactly 100 cents using exactly 12 coins." (E.g., 2Q + 3D + 4N = 9 coins, no… try 1Q + 6D + 3N = 10 coins… push until 12 works: 2Q+2D+6N+2P if pennies allowed, or 8D+4N = 12 coins ✓ 80+20=100.)
Step 1: Set the scene at the class store: the book costs 5.00. The clerk's job: hand back the GAP.
Step 2: Count UP from the price to the payment, placing real coins as you go: 3.50; + two quarters → 5.00.
Step 3: Total the change laid on the counter: 5 + 25 + 25 + 100 = 155 cents = $1.55.
Step 4: Cross-check by subtraction: 500 − 345 = 155 ✓. Same answer — but notice which method needed no borrowing, no algorithm, and produced the physical coins as a side effect. Shopkeepers counted up for centuries for exactly this reason.
Drill the pattern: coins to the next quarter-mark, quarters to the next dollar, dollars to the payment. Three moves cover every everyday change problem.
The facts: Dev has 4 allowance each week but spends 18. Four weeks from now — party or heartbreak?
Step 1: Find the true weekly saving RATE first: earns 4, spends 1 → saves 4 — the sticker leak is the whole point of the problem.)
Step 2: Build the week-by-week table: start 9 → week 2: 15 → week 4: $18.
Step 3: Compare to the target: 18 held. He makes it EXACTLY — with zero cushion.
Step 4: The judgment questions that turn arithmetic into financial literacy: "What if the game's price rises a dollar?" (Short.) "What single choice gets him there a week early?" (Skip stickers: saves 4/week → $6+12 = 18 by week 3.) Every saving plan is a race between a rate and a target — and small leaks decide races.
Exit: design your own 4-week plan for a $20 goal, stating income, leaks, and the week you arrive.