Coins

Children have a natural curiosity about money.  I wonder if they sense how much we value it?   I wonder whether our connection to money fuels their interest in it?

One of the things that Campster expressed an interest in learning about this year is money.  She has gone in two months from not really knowing her dimes from her nickels, to feeling pretty confident about adding sums in her head.

Here she is doing a project from a great series called "Math By All Means".   A wonderful friend handed down a bunch of these books to me, and we pick them up from time to time to do a lesson from them.  This fall we've been doing the Money book, and the girls have been loving it.

I have a change jar that I use for these lessons.  Campster first sorted the coins into Quarters, Dimes, Nickels and Pennies.  Then, taking just the pennies, she used a magnifying glass to identify the date on each one.  We wrote the dates on Post-its and lined them up in order on the dining room table.  Then we added our families birth years as well.  We talked about which pennies are older than Big Dad (that's really old!) and which ones were younger than Sher Bear.  She learned about dates and became very comfortable with identifying pennies.

I am finding that I will sometimes think that a particular lesson from the book is silly, or won't hold the kids interest.  But when I try it, Surprise!  The kids actually love it.

On the other hand, sometimes I will be really excited about a certain project, only to find that the kids couldn't care less about it.  The tendency used to be for me to try to talk them into it.  But I am learning that it is better to just say "Okay, I can see you are not interested in doing that."   Then I can move on to something else that might be more exciting for them.  Or just take a break from that subject for a while.

By the way, please do notice the torn and worn wallpaper in the picture.  We have just repainted the dining room - and I will be posting "after" pictures soon.  :)

Wish you were here!