Money Jars

Today's read-aloud, A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams, is about a family that saves up coins in a jar to buy a new soft comfy chair after losing many of their belongings in a fire.  We talked about how we might save up coins in a jar and did a little counting of my large demonstration coins in a big plastic jar.  Then we compared the total coins in two jars. 

Math choices included this worksheet where students filled the jars using coin stamps, totalled the amount of money, and indicated whether jar A or jar B had a greater total by filling in the appropriate circle.  This open-ended task allowed students to adjust the amount of money they had to count in simpler or more complex combinations.  Younger children stamped only with pennies.  Older children counted quarters, dimes, nickles, and pennies. 

Small groups at the round table met with me and we worked on counting real coins in babyfood jars, then recording and comparing the amounts in the jars.  Youngers circled the jar with the greater amount while olders began to work with greater than (>) and less than signs (<).