Stephanie was talking to Emerson, Riggins and Forrest about how she still has to pay for her daughter’s pizza day after being reminded by a pizza box outside of the classroom.
“How much does her pizza cost?” Riggins wondered.
“It cost $1.75 per slice of pizza and I order her 2 slices.” Stephanie responded.
“How much does that equal?” Emerson inquired.
“Why don’t we sit down and try to calculate it?” Stephanie suggested.
The children sat at the table with Stephanie and began to write out 1.75 + 1.75 =. After completing the math, Riggins shouted, “holy! You pay $350 for 2 slices of pizza?” Stephanie reminded Riggins that he forgot to carry the decimal down, once she showed him how to do that, Emerson responded with, “oh, $3.50 is a lot cheaper!”
Riggins then asked if Stephanie could give him some more money math questions for him to try and figure out. Emerson asked for some as well. As the three of them were working on money math, Spencer came up and asked what we were doing. Spencer admitted that he wasn’t sure how to add money, so Stephanie and Riggins decided to quickly cut out some rectangles with blue, green, and purple construction paper and some circles out of grey, yellow and brown. Riggins began to add the numbers on the different coloured paper, the blue paper became $5 bills, purple became $10 bills and the green became $20 bills. Once completed, Riggins asked Spencer to show him how to make $100 out the bills he had made. Spencer completed this and Riggins congratulated Spencer and said, see, you know how to add money! Riggins then proceeded to show Spencer different ways to make $100 using $5 bills, $10 bills, and $20 bills.
What about the money sparks such a curiosity in the children? Riggins and Emerson continuing to ask for more money math questions, and showing off their work, indicates they are proud of themselves for being able to solve these equations. Adding a decimal for the money, and adding up the cents, seemed to be something new for Riggins, is this what made it so interesting to him? How can we continue to grow this interest and keep the children eng
aged?
The next day, Stephanie went and collected some small and medium sized toys and added price tags to them. She also printed out some fake bills and coins to laminate. The educators set out the objects on the table along with a calculator and keyboard. The children were each given a $10 bill prior to entering the classroom. There was a prompt written “How many items can you buy for $10?”
“I want to be the store worker!” Spencer indicated. The children all seemed supportive of this and began their shopping.
“I wonder how much this costs.” Charlie indicated as she was turning a small toy around in her hands trying to find the price tag. “50 cents! That’s it? But I have $10.”
“What about this?” Devyn shouted as she handed Charlie a different toy. “This one costs $5!”
“If that is $5 and you have $10, once you pay for that item, how much money will you have left?” Stephanie asked Charlie. She sat with that question for a minute before Elora said, “Charlie, think of what 10 minus 5 is.”
“I would have $5!” Charlie sang with a smile on her face.
The children continued to purchase items from Spencer, who continued to count their change to hand back, he used the calculator as well as had support from the educators in the classroom.
The staff asked themselves, what other activities can we do to involve money that the children would be interested in. Just then, Riggins reminded the educators of how we had created a Tim Horton’s during Summer camp and asked if this is something we
could do again. This gave the educators the idea they needed.
The day that the coffee shop was created, Charlie had asked to be the shop worker. As she was given money, she would make the coffee, or gather the muffin, cookie, or croissant, whatever the customer ordered and would hand them their order. Charlie learned how to use the calculator to help her find out how much change she needed to give back to the customer.
One customer wanted everything on the menu, this ended up costing them too much money, as each child was only given $10. “Oh man, I really wanted it all!” Colton sighed. “Here, take some of mine, I have my change!” Caden responded. This put a smile on Colton’s face as he went back to Charlie to order everything.
As their interest on money was starting to come to an end, Stephanie asked if the children would be interested in planning a party for ourselves, to celebrate each of us. Of course, she was met with shouts of “yes!” To begin this process, Stephanie asked the children what items we would need for a party. The children began to discuss all the things that they wanted for their party. “I wonder how much this will all cost?” Stephanie inquired.
“Can we use the iPad to search up things that we want to see how much they will cost?” Emerson asked.
Stephanie ga
ve the children an iPad to take turns looking up some items. “Fidget spinners are so expensive!” The children were discovering. “I wonder if we can find something cheaper, I don’t think Lisa will let us spend that much money!”
After searching up some items, the children concluded that they would need $40 for everything for the party. They decided to write a letter to Lisa asking if they could have the funds to have their celebration. The children also discussed different ways that we could maybe create our own items for the party as well.
We are all very excited for this party that will be happening on November 20th. Please continue to check our Documentation board for more stories as we continue to plan and get ready to implement our party!
Not only have the children been developing their cognitive and math skills with their interest in money, they have been building their communication (expression), sense of belonging, engagement and well-being. As the children continue to plan their party and ensure that everyone is happy and involved with the planning, they are continuing to express themselves individually. The School-Age 2 children have continued to create a warm and welcoming environment within their classroom and interact and engage with each other in many different ways. As we continue to plan for this party, some questions we wonder are; what are some of the items we create on our own? What will the party look like? Stay tuned to find out!
