Monday, May 28, 2012

Moving Decimal (A Money Exercise)


In the process of brainstorming a place value activity, this little exercise was born. It’s simple and fun and takes next to no prep.

Just find the following:
A small black button, pom-pom, or a magnet (what we used)
Funny money (download some here if you don’t have any)
A bunch of coins
A deck of cards with only the face cards (just two through nine)
(I made some zero cards, although they’re not necessary.)

How to play
The child draws two cards.


Put the ‘decimal’ in front of him/her. How much money is that? Have the child use the coins to count it out.



The child draws another card. It is placed behind the other two and the decimal is moved behind the first card. Now how much money is that? Let the child use coins and funny money bills to show you.


The activity continues until five cards are on the table. Then you’re done or you’re starting over. You choose!


4 comments:

  1. You are so creative! I am having so much fun perusing your blog. :) Thanks for sharing all your great ideas with the me!

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  2. Thanks for sharing another fun math game. I love so many of your posts and plan to incorporate them into our homeschool year.

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  3. I read your other posts about counting money with your son, and tell you what, I got great smiles afterwards. Congratulations for teaching your son how to value money. This can be a great way to teach kids to save money as well. If they know the value of money, this will encourage them to save up even at a young age. So continue these fun activities with him, and who knows, you might have a "banker" in the family soon.

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  4. Wow, this is really cool. I am tucking it away on my pinterest board for later! I am thinking I could adapt it for use with our older students as well .... with a time limit ... kind of like a speed round! You can NEVER be too good with understanding of decimals ... and we are using card decks more and more in math too at our house! thank you for sharing!

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