Does anyone have any useful, easy ways to teach children how to make change? I have been teaching this concept using money, and counting up from the price to the money you have. I started off with easier problems like : the price is $3.90, you have $4.00. As I made it progressively harder, I discovered my student has trouble skip counting. He wants to count by ones and I have been pushing him to count by 10s and then 25s (with visuals to help). Yet when I give him numbers to skip count on paper like 35, 45, 55… he’s fine. It is hard for him to skip count just with the money. He gets easily frustrated. He is in the fifth grade and I feel needs this skill because he is uncomfortable in stores. He could just estimate but I think he really needs this skill as well. I’m thinking he just needs a lot of repetition, and time. However, he gets easily frustrated with himself, which I’d like to help with. Any ideas?
Re: making change
I agree wholeheartedly — keep it *BELOW* the frustration level and he’ll actually learn it faster. That only amazed me the first 12 times I watched it happen… but when you expect to be able to get the right answer you’re more likely to get access to the path to get there.
Give him the time and do the repetition. Why is math always supposed to be hurry up and fail?
Let him do the change several ways. Have him do the subtraction on parer, so he understands what is going on. Then have him count it on the number line. Then have him count it with coins and match the coins to the place on the number line. Finally try the *same* problem with just the coins. After he gets comfortable with it, there will come the day when the flash of insight hits. But you have to work for those lightbulbs to light up.