Teaching Australian Money

I love teaching Australian money. It would have to be one of my favourite parts of the Australian Curriculum for Maths. I do believe teaching young children about money and financial matters is an important lifelong skill. In their second year at school, Australian children begin to learn about Australian coins - how to recognise, describe and order the different coins according to their value.

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Teaching Australian Money - classroom ideas and ready to print resources perfect for teaching Australian coins in hands on play | you clever monkey

One of our favourite activities in class is to use our giant sized Australian coins and take it in turns to stand up in front of class while the remaining students instruct their friends where to move to put the coins in the correct order. In the absence of sharing student's images, our favourite Happyland people are happy to stand in for us to demonstrate.

To start with the goal is to place the coins in the correct order by value not by size or number. Once your students become more confident, you can still do this same quick sort and try to get the coins in the right spots with the fewest moves. I also use a worksheet version of this activity as a preassessment to see what my students already know about the different coins and their values.

I've posted ideas for teaching Australian money before but have plenty of other teachers asking me to post some of the hands on resources I use in class to help my students learn how to identify, differentiate and order Australian coins by their value.

I've created several different printables which are perfect for whole class instruction or working in small groups, at math centres or as independent math stations.

With a focus on Australian coins, the activities in our 35 page ready to print pack include -

- Australian coin matching mats for 1:1 correspondence practice,

- Australian coin sorting mats with coins to match or values to match,

- Australian coin connect 4 game with 10 different game boards,

- printable Australian coin dice ready to construct,

- Australian coin identification and counting sheet,

- coin combination mats - great for looking at most efficient ways to pay,

- Australian coin peg cards to count and match the correct value,

- Australian coin place value assessment sheet,

- Australian coin counting assessment sheet,

plus teaching ideas and a selection of mental math routine questions to promote class discussion and focus on describing and ordering Australian coins by value.

AUSTRALIAN MONEY - COINS
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