Play shops with your child. Select some items from around the house. These could be toys to play toy shops or food items from the kitchen to play food shopping. Arrange the items and if possible ask your child to write some price tags on pieces of paper. These do not have to be realistic prices, but it is a good opportunity to encourage them to practise number formation.
Use any coins that you have in the house. Encourage your child to select and pay for items using the correct number of coins. If an item costs 3p, ask your child to pay with any 3 coins. The important thing is to talk about counting out the correct number of coins and using the language of money. Question such as ‘How much does it cost?” “How many coins?” “Will there be any change?” (Some may begin to understand the numbers on the coins and the amount of money they represent. If you want to talk about this with your child, please do. It will be easier to begin with pennies and paying with the correct number of pennies. Then explain that 2p is the same as 2 pennies, 5p is the same as 5 pennies etc.)
Take it in turns to be the shop keeper and the customer. In Reception Class, children need to become familiar with and use language associated with money. You could show them a variety of coins, notes and credit/debit cards and discuss how these are all different way of paying for things. On Friday I posted a picture of a coin sorting activity. If your child has not completed this activity, it would follow on from nicely from today’s maths work.
Playing shops is also a good opportunity for your child to practise their subtraction. So if you started with 3 tins of beans in your shop and then your child buys 1 tin ask them how many tins would be left? Consolidate this by saying ‘3 take away 1 equals 2’ .
Here is a coin sheet to reinforce this work. Ask your child to colour in the coins accurately. Match any real coins to the pictures.
Here is a link to an interactive money game.
