Teaching Coin Values & Counting Money to First Graders

Are you ready to teach your child about how to count coins, but you’re just not sure where to start? Below are some great resources for teaching coin counting to elementary students.

The key to teaching children how to count coins and understand money value is repetition. Utilizing real coins when playing games or practicing is also helpful. For best results, teach daily for several weeks and then continue to review with games and activities throughout the year.

Lesson Plans

If you’re not sure where to start teaching coin value to your student, these money lesson plans from various places may spark some great ideas. I actually found just using the videos below, along with songs and activity, worked best for us. But these lessons may give you ideas that work best for teaching your first grader how to count coins.

Videos

Sometimes it is fun to have a “guest teacher” help reinforce a lesson. These counting coins videos are great for introducing coin counting to elementary kids.

Songs

“Money, money, money in my pocket…” Get ready to get the words to this great money song stuck in your head. We love all music videos by Jack Hartmann, and his money song doesn’t disappoint. To switch things up a bit, I have also linked to two other songs we liked.

The Money Song (Jack Hartmann)
Counting Coins Song
Coins (ABC Mouse)

Games & Activities

Our favorite way to learn is through hands-on. There are so many great ways to play with money as kids learn to count coins. Below are some of our favorites.

Game: Race to Get Wheels
Game: Pop the Piggy
Activity: Counting Coins Boom Card
Activity: Counting Coins Clip Game
Activity: Counting Coins Boom Card

Worksheets

I’m not a huge fan of worksheets for teaching kids how to count coins. I truly prefer the hands-on practice using real coins. But here are a few worksheets for you if your child learns best using them.