Coin Stacking

I love coin activities because it is something everyone usually has laying around their house.  My 5 year old son, Max recently wanted to count his money to see if he had enough to buy a new motorized motorcycle bike. So, I took this as a perfect opportunity to teach him about money. Before we counted (which clearly there isn’t enough for the motorcycle bike) I asked him to help me with this game.

I know he knows the names of some coins but I know he doesn’t know all of them. We dumped all of his coins on the table and I had pre-made a die with a  drawing of a coin and a number in each section.  Whatever coin he rolled,he would have to count out that many of that coin and stack them. This also turned into a balance game to see who could build their money tower the tallest without it falling over.

We both kept stacking until mine fell over — he continued to want to play multiple times. This was such a good lesson for him because he really started to understand the difference in coins and that can be tricky when three of them are silver!