Classroom Activity Guides

More Lessons

Classroom Curriculum

Race to the DollarDownload

Background

A good way to count change quickly is to start by counting the coins of the highest value first. If you have a pile with 3 pennies, 2 dimes and 1 nickel, count the dimes first, then the nickels and finally the pennies. You can also “skip count” to add up coins quickly. “Skip counting” is counting by any number other than one. You can skip count by 2’s, 5’s or 10’s. For instance, when you count “2, 4, 6, 8” you are “skip counting.”

Materials

Note cards
Paper and pencil

Procedure

Make your coin cards by cutting the note cards in half and writing coin denominations (1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢) on each card. You should make multiple cards with the same denomination.
Shuffle the cards.
Deal cards to the players with the coin side facing down. Players cannot peek at their cards.
To play, each player flips their top card to the coin side and notes how much it is worth.
Each player flips the next card and adds the value of that card to their original card. It may help to write an equation for the total value of the coins. For instance, your equation may look like this:
25¢ + 10¢ + 5¢ + 1¢ = 41¢
OR
$0.25 + $0.10 + $0.05 + $0.01 = $0.41
Players keep turning over cards until one player reaches a dollar and wins the game.