Our school district is on week 2 of At-Home Learning. Israel’s class was working on counting coins before the break, so I wanted to continue that at home. As a former 2nd grade teacher, I know how important it is for students to understand how to identify and count coins. So, this past week I gathered up some of my first grade math activities, and we got to work!
Daily Word Problems
Each morning Israel started with a coin math problem. He glued these into a journal, read the question, and followed the directions. Most of the days he was identifying a particular coin and counting the collection. This helped get us focused for the day.

Game: Race to Fifty Cents
We played a few math games together to build on the skills that he already has. Race to 50 cents is a great game for coin identification and skip counting. Students spin a coin, identify that coin, and move that many spaces. This allows students to practice identifying the value of that coin. The first player to fifty cents is the winner! This is a quick game, so we were able to play several times!
Game: Spin, Graph, and Total
I absolutely LOVE this game for identifying coins, understanding values, and skip counting. Students spin a coin and graph the coin that was spun. Once a coin reaches the top of the graph, students skip count to find the total value of each coin.
Activity: Make a Match
Once I knew that Israel understood all of the coin values and how to count basic coin collections, it was all about the practice. He matched a collection of coins to the total value.
Interactive Notebooks: Identifying and Counting Coins
We did some paper and pencil work as well. I am trying to keep all of the work he completes at home in his interactive notebook, so these flap-books were great for that. We identified coins and practiced counting with these flap-books.
Race to 50 Cents FREEBIE
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Teaching Resource
All of the activities mentioned in this post come from THIS teaching resource.
