Children's Museum of Houston

Did you know?

What you need

• Pennies (at least 500)
• Different sized clear containers
• Pencil and paper
• Penny Fact Questions (optional)

What to do

1. Make a guess as to how many pennies you can grab with one hand out of a large pile of pennies.
2. Now grab one handful of pennies.
3. Count out how many pennies you grabbed.
4. Choose a container and estimate how many handfuls it will take to fill it.
5. Now fill the container and count how many handfuls it took. Using what you know about the number of pennies in a handful and how many handfuls it took to fill the container, calculate how many pennies are in the container.
6. Count them out.
7. Compare your estimate to the actual number of pennies.
8. Repeat steps 1-6 with a different-sized container.
9. Try to answer some of the Penny Fact Questions.

What to ask

• How close was your estimate?
• What is the largest number of pennies you can grab out of the jar?
• How many do you think a grownup can grab?
• Will a hand that is twice the size of yours be able to pick up twice as many pennies?
• What is a fast way to count your pennies?

What’s next?

• Trace your hand (fingers together) on a piece of paper. Cover the tracing of your hand with pennies. Use your hand to figure out how many pennies it would take to cover a tabletop.
• About how many hands would you need to hold 1000 pennies? How much money would that be?
• Try the same activity with different coins, like nickels. How does this change your estimate?