Best Money Lesson Plans & Printables {Hands-On & FUN!}

By A Plus TeacherOn March 20, 2019April 8, 2020

Our Money Lesson Plans, Printables and hands-on activities are guaranteed to make learning Fun for kids. Make your math planning EASY with our MUST HAVE Teacher Resources!

Teaching money is one of my favourite topics to plan and teach. The kids love learning about it too! Well actually they love playing with the money and get very excited when they get to plunge their hands into the boxes of play money. This is before the mention of a class play shop!

So why is this? If you’ve been in the teaching game a few years, then like me, maybe you have noticed that math and money in the real world has changed a lot (am sounding quite old now…hahahah… wait I am!).

I have literally been affected by these changes myself and if I check my wallet right now, I will not find any coins or notes in there! I just don’t use money like I used to! I am guilty of paying for absolutely EVERYTHING with my flexible friend!

I can’t even remember the last time I used the ATM or even set foot in the BANK! This is a sign of the times and a reminder of the importance of helping the kids to connect math to real life!

Related Post: Teaching Money (Notes)
Related Post: Teaching Kids How To Count & Add Money

Money In Real Life

Gone are the days of sitting for hours sorting, stacking and counting the ‘penny’ jar and taking it to the bank. These opportunities to count coins were literally priceless (pun intended!). So many learning opportunities to work on sorting, categorising, and counting, now lost.

Sadly the changes in how we use money in real life has had a huge impact on how kids interact, handle and understand the concept of money.

Over the years I have noticed that too many kids haven’t physically handled money before our money lesson. Even worse is the decline in the number of children who have actually seen REAL coins and notes used in the shops.

Because of these changes too many kids find learning about the basic features of money, the value of coins and notes difficult. This is even before we get to equivalent amounts and giving change!

This makes learning and teaching money tricky and needs some well thought out money lesson plans, printables and hands-on activities that will help kids learn about coins, notes and money.

How Teach Money In The Classroom

Teaching Money is broken down into 8 areas:

Coin Recognition – Recognise features, describe & order coins
Note Recognition – Recognise features, describe & order notes
Collections – Count and order small collections of notes & coins
Equivalences – Show money values in multiple ways
Change – Give change to nearest 5 cents
Problem Solving -Solve money word problems involving change
Simple Financial Planning – simple budgets
Percentage Discounts

We have used this breakdown to create a range of differentiated activities to meet the needs of the students and not just the Year level requirements.

We will be adding more lessons plans and activities for teaching NOTES as well as versions of the printables for USA, UK & Canada. Sign up below to get notifications or just JOIN THE CLUB NOW!

Money Lesson Plans & Activities

Coin Recognition

Check out these awesome money lesson plans, printables, games and teacher worksheets.

Our teaching coins printables have been created to make sure they cover every element for deep understandings about coins. We have also focussed on making sure the printables do no scaffold the students or inadvertently tell them the answer! (a sheet with the title addition could be scaffolding students ability to select the correct operation to solve a problem!)

These coin printables are focussed on coin recognition and include the opportunity for students to discover:

Coins are different in other countries
The features of coins – colour, size, shape, animals or people featured
Which coins are worth more or less than others
How to sort coins according to criteria – size, shape, colour and more
Different coins represent different amounts
The size of the coin doesn’t represent the value of the coin
How to record coin values using, numbers, words & symbols

We will be adding more lessons plans and activities for teaching NOTES as well as versions of the printables for USA, UK & Canada. Sign up below to get notifications or just JOIN THE CLUB NOW!

Here is the Teacher Planning Downloads, Teacher Demonstration Materials, Classroom Visuals and Assessment Tasks for teaching coins.

Teaching Coins Planning Overview

Coins Frayer Model Thinkboards

Coins Classroom Posters

Teacher Warm-up Visuals -Coins

Coin Classroom Decor & Word Wall

Coin Pre-Assessment Task

Coin Post Unit Assessment

Teaching Australian Coins Activities

Printables, Activities & Worksheets For Teaching Coins

Your kids will love these hands-on engaging math printables, worksheets, and activities. We have included so many ideas for games, jigsaws, spinner games, colour by code and there’s even a make your own mini coin book!

One of our all time favourite resources is the Frayer model thinkboard which can also be used for assessments if you like. Read more about using thinkboards in the classroom here.

So get downloading and grab the BEST ever money lesson plans, printables & assessment lists.

MIni Coin Features Book

Piggy Banks Coin Features

Wanted Coins Activity

Sorting Coins Thinkboards

Australian Coin Jigsaws

Coin Match Mazes

Coin Memory Card Game

Coin Bingo Spinner Games

Money BOOM Cards

Coin Recognition Activity Colour By Coin

Student Activity Checklist

Australian Notes Math Center Games

So now your kids have built a solid understanding of coins, onto recognising dollar notes! For Activities on Teaching Australian Notes Download these hands-on activities to help kids learn everything about Australian notes. (Click The Image Below!)

Note identification isn’t a reporting item but it still needs to be taught. Click the image Below to get more Australian Money Printables, Games And Worksheets