#3188. Coin Hunt and It's Variations

Mathematics, level: Kindergarten
Posted Thu Jul 22 15:52:16 PDT 2004 by Linda Holm (lindah@up.net).
L'Anse Area Schools, L'Anse, MI
Materials Required: Lots of change!
Activity Time: 15 mins. or as long as they want to play
Concepts Taught: Recognizing the penny, nickel, dime, quarter

I divide my class into two teams. They sit in two lines facing each other on the floor. I spread out all my change between the two lines from one end to the other. It doesn't matter if the coins land on heads or tails. Starting with the first child in each line, I have them stand and I call out a coin name or it's value. The first one to find the correct coin, holds on to it until the game is over. If two children each find the same coin, it's a tie and they both keep them. I go through the lines at least once. Then we count the number of coins each team collected. One person from each team writes their total on the board so everyone can see. Last, we read the totals and find who had the most coins and who had the fewest.

VARIATIONS: You can start small with just the penny and nickel and build from there througout the year. Also, starting in the beginning of the year, I do this with numbers 1-10, later 1-20 and finally, 1-100. Also, I do shapes, colors, or letters. It's also a good game for attributes (a large, yellow square or a small blue triangle, etc).