Counting Coins and Rolling Pennies
April 21, 2021 | Sossi Essajanian
After weeks of collecting coins in their Lent boxes, the Sky Class children brought their donations to add to the Lenten collection for World Central Kitchen (WCK).
Shaking the boxes, the children thought about how many coins could be inside? Did all the coins look the same?
Once all the boxes were opened, the children saw the different sizes and colors of coins.
How many of each type do we have?
This spurred the children’s thinking: how they can keep track of the different types of coins while counting?
So… first they sorted them!
This work also helped them learn about the different kinds of money.
After all the coins were sorted into jars, the children began packing them into rolls in preparation for delivery to the bank.
Each roll is for 50 pennies. How can do this accurately?
Step 1: counting out 10 coins on a 10-frame
How many groups of 10 do we need to count out to make 50?
How can we keep track?
Each cup can hold 10 pennies.
If they fill five cups, there will be 50 all together!
Last step: fill a roll with all 50 pennies
Sossi Essajanian
Teacher, Sky Class
Sossi Essajanian is excited to continue her teaching and learning journey at the Mustard Seed School. She began teaching at the United Nations International School where she worked with children and colleagues from around the world. This inspired her to take a primary teaching position abroad in Nicosia, Cyprus, where she lived and worked for two years.
Ms. Essajanian has a passion for supporting children’s social/emotional skills and learning through a loving and caring classroom community. These are built on creating shared understandings and opportunities for children to identify and express their feelings and of those around them. She believes in creating experiences through pair and group work where learning blossoms through social experiences.
Ms. Essajanian also enjoys reading and talking about books and continues to pursue her second passion: editing. She’s worked in various editorial capacities in newspapers, magazines, and books. She was recently excited to serve as the development editor of a children’s book about engineering and is looking forward to leading some tinkering investigations of her own with her students!
In her free time Ms. Essajanian runs, swims laps, and likes to take long walks to explore the world around her.
