Tag Archives: pennies

Math Update

This week, our mathematicians had fun playing with real money! 🙂 We spent some time reviewing all of the coins that we have learned so far this year and how much each is worth.

Using these coins, we practiced making amounts that were given in examples. For these examples, using quarters is only optional. Sometimes it can be easiest to use dimes and nickels instead of quarters.

There are many different ways to make 38 cents with the above coins. We tried to make this amount in as many different ways as possible…

The kids had a lot of fun finding all of the combinations! Of course there are many more variations, but you get the idea.

 

For the following week, we plan to introduce finding the total of two coin amounts by counting on, reviewing all of the lessons involving money, and taking a short assessment. For the end of the week, we will review the terms “greater than” and “less than”. And also briefly work with Number Lines.

Math

In math this week, our first grade mathematicians spent a lot of time working with dimes. They were introduced to the dime stripand it’s relationship to 10 pennies and they were able to explore and share what they already knew about a dime. Since our mathematicians already know so much about counting tens and ones, the transition to dimes and pennies was effortless! We spent half of the week working with just these two coins and then added nickels at the end of the week.

Next, we wrote and solved equations involving coins. Even though counting on is the quickest strategy for addition, we continued to worked on proving our answers with a drawing too. We used the “make a ten strategy” to demonstrate this.

And lastly, we looked at a 100-Grid. First, we focused on patterns that we could find. Our mathematicians were very good at this! One of the patterns that was noticed was that each row increases by 10 (example: 1, 11, 21, 31, 41…). We called this skip counting. We also touched on the fact that this increase is always in the tens place value and that the ones place value stays the same.

We will continue to work on these strategies more throughout next week as we perfect the make a ten strategy with teen numbers in addition and subtraction problems.

Math Update

During our math switch this week we continued to practice, practice, practice our counting-on strategy to find missing totals.

When solving an equation with a missing total, we learned to underline the greater number and count on with dots under the smaller number.  Counting on from the greater number is the fastest and most accurate way to solve a missing total equation.

We also used our counting on strategy as we worked with nickels and pennies this week.  Our nickel strip, which you saw on your child’s homework page, helps us remember that “a nickel is equal to five pennies”.  With this knowledge, the kids were easily able to identify a nickel as 5 cents and count on each additional penny.

After our practice with money this week, our first grade mathematicians were able to tell the difference between nickels and pennies with great ease.  Later in the year, when dimes and quarters are introduced, it becomes much more difficult for our first graders to differentiate between the three “silver” coins.  At home, please provide your child with opportunities to explore with nickels and be sure to talk with him/her about the special properties of this coin that make it stand out from the others (medium sized, Monticello on the back, President Jefferson on the front, smooth outside edges, worth 5 cents).

As always, thank you so much for your support and encouragement as your child grows their math skills at home and at school!

Miss Taber 🙂