counting money

How do you teach students to count mixed coins?

Here's My Answer
by Zach
(Singapore)

To teach grade 1 kids counting of coins, there are a few things you can do:

1. Constant exposure to physical coins. Kids learn best when they are given concrete objects to see, feel, touch and use. Give them opportunities in daily life to buy things, first with exact change and then later with larger amounts requiring change.

2. Use of Number Bonds. For example, teach them that the number bond of 5 could be 5 and 0, 4 and 1, 3 and 2. Number bonds facilitates quick recall. You can use counters to let them manipulate and form number bonds before progressing to drawing pictures on paper to illustrate number bonds and then eventually to number sentences.

The above teaching methods hinges on the central approach in Singapore Math -- The CPA Approach.

The CPA Approach (Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract Approach) relies on concrete materials to teach fundamental concepts before moving on to pictorial cues and then to abstract number sentences.

Our Singaporean kids respond very well to this approach and we have had much success teaching Math this way.