One of my work-ons from our most recent session with Dinah Harvey was to use money to teach and illustrate place value concepts.
To do this I used the scenario of a boss having to pay his workers (the kids), but not having enough of some of the denominations. For example - 5 tens and 23 ones. Students needed to work out how much money this equated to. Students wrote their guesses onto a piece of paper and placed in on the ground in the middle of the circle. Incorrect answers were eliminated and then students used paper money to demonstrate the correct number.
This use of money worked because it is something that the students are exposed to in their everyday lives. Additionally, being able to physically handle money helped students to see the concept of base 10 and how to roll a number over between place value columns.
I also used money to teach rounding. In this activity students made a guess about the price of an item and then we discussed who was closest. This flowed onto looking at rounding numbers (the idea of being closest helped with this).
Looking to the future I plan to continue to use money to teach other maths concepts. For example - using paper money to teach multiplying by 10, 100, 1000 etc.
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