Money & a Hip Website

I love teaching my kiddos about money. Although we've been doing coins all year, we are "formally" doing money in math towards the end of the upcoming week. This year I've been using the "Honey Bunny" song from Teacher Tipster. At first I thought my second graders would think it too babyish, but I was wrong . . . they LOVE it! We do hand motions with it to show the amounts as we sing and jump around.

This is the printout I made of the song to use in my calendar flip chart for my Promethean board and to put in the kiddos poetry/song notebooks and math journals.  Click on the picture if you'd like a copy.

This week we are adding in the half-dollar "officially", so I adapted the song a bit to include the half-dollar. Here is the new version we will use this week.  Click the picture to grab a copy.

We had a parent a few years ago complain that we teach the kids how to make change. Yes, complain!! Because cash registers do it for you, dummy. So why bother to teach it. I was shocked to say the least.

Why do we teach spelling? Spellcheck does it for you, stupid. Why do we teach adding or subtracting? A calculator can do that, idiot. Heck, we don't even need to know how to back up a car because now the sensor thing beeps if you are too close to something. So let's just dumb our society down even more people.

Okay, I think I'm done ranting. I'd love to know your thoughts on teaching this senseless crap garbage.

This year I am also going to use some ideas from this website created just for kids by the United States Mint  called H.I.P Pocket Change.

The site has animated games, coin-related cartoons, and informational features. It connects coins to our history and culture. Here is what H.I.P. stands for:

I love that! There are more than 500 free cross-curricular lesson plans for teachers. The activities range in length from quick and easy to full-length plans. Teachers are encouraged to share ideas on how they use coins in the classroom and can contact the Mint with ideas and questions.

We have our students bring real coins as part of their school supplies so that when we are learning about money they don't just have to use plastic coins, although we use those for a lot of things.  Each child brings a baggie with about $2 worth of coins that they keep in their pencil box.  We specify on our supply list what coins to bring.  At the end of the year, they take the money home.

Teacher's Clubhouse has lot of great money resources such as PowerPoints about coins and counting coins, coin signs, coin booklets, and coin games galore.

Don't forget to let me know what you think about teaching kids how to make change or any other stupid thing you've been teaching!  :)